The one character trait that you need…

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Conscientiousness

This week a listener wrote in asking about the importance of being conscientious and should we be developing this trait, does it serve us well.

To be ‘scient’ is to be knowing, aware, knowledgeable or awake. Con means ‘with’. So to be conscientious is to act with awareness or awakeness, in short to be mindful.

“Conscientiousness is the state of being thorough, careful, or vigilant; it implies a desire to do a task well. Conscientiousness is also one trait of the five-factor model of personality, and is manifested in characteristic behaviours such as being efficient, organised, neat, and systematic. It includes such elements as self-discipline, carefulness, thoroughness, self-organisation, deliberation (the tendency to think carefully before acting), and need for achievement.”

Ramji, my teacher, once said to me that a good person is someone who is getting better at ‘it’. The ‘it’ could be anything or any aspect of your personal development. The key ingredient to getting better at whatever is conscientiousness.

For my resource of week I suggested Erkart Toille’s book ‘The Power Of Now‘. Living in the present, living in the now is the mindful manifestation of conscientiousness. To develop the ability to be mindful requires the application of conscientiousness. In doing this it creates a constant and persistent habit.

Remember that a habit is something that you do without the need for willpower or effort. It is something that you just do. To be conscientious, to be mindful, is the ultimate habit, it is the one trait that rules all that you do. When you have developed this habit whatever you do will always be the best it could possibly be, and by definition, every time that you revisit it you will get better and better at it.

If you are conscientious about being a good person in the end you will be pretty amazing.

Be mindful, be conscientious, be happy

Sean x

Dealing with long term unemployment

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This idea was passed to us by Lee a long term listener. He told us that he had been forced into retirement for medical reasons at 42 and is left with the question “now what?” He now finds himself struggling with motivation trying to check job listings and get going again.

Ed and I see ourselves as long term unemployed, that is, we don’t work for people we work for ourselves. We do that on the basis that we have the freedom to do what we want when we want and are not tied to the whims of an employer. In reality I spend half my time as a consultant in the NHS and the rest of the time I am in companies or seeing people privately. I know that both Ed and I probably work many more hours, and many of them unsociable hours, than we would if we were employed. Yet, we both hold the concept of ‘chosen unemployment’ and perhaps, in many ways, that is the point, it is not what we do it is how we see what we do that counts.

In our hours of employment there are times when we both do what would be termed ‘work’ for little or no money. I see people, who need it and are unable to pay in the normal manner, for free and Ed is a committed charity worker with the blind.

How do we define work and not work?
Every species on the planet wakes up in the morning and gets on with it’s life. The activities of survival, food and water, building a home, creating a relationship and raising the young are common to all of us. We as human beings, have broken away from all other species with the invention of money and our developed acquisitive drive to own stuff.

Money has put us in the position where we no longer have to kill our own meat, make our own milk and cheese, weave our own cloth, cobble our own shoes. We have become the specialist in ‘non-productive’ work that we do in exchange for tokens that we then exchange for the things that we need, or for the stuff that fill our houses. Society has become not about who we are, the skills that we have to offer, or the contribution that we can make for the good of us all, it is now about how many tokens can we gather and keep for our self? People with lots of tokens are called ‘rich’ and those with only a few, or no, tokens are called ‘poor’.

Money, money, money
When in general people describe themselves as ‘unemployed’ they are not saying that there is nothing to be done they usually mean that they are not in a position to exchange their time for token, for money.

When this happens to us we have become poor and we have to rely on others to give us tokens as benefits or charity. These concepts sway who we are, how we see ourselves, how we are seen by others and how we act. Often we will give a rich bad person with money status and poor good person without money little or no status at all.

When we value people by their ability to get tokens we down grade some of the most important jobs in life. At the dinner party, when strangers meet, the first thing they ask each other is “and what do you do?” The answer to this question is given status usually related to the amount of tokens an individuals role in life is worth. The worst praise ever uttered at a dinner party is “I’m only a house wife”. Strange as this is probably one of the most important jobs on the planet yet it attracts no tokens at all.

We need to, ‘love people and use money’, not the other way around and we need to remember that ‘it is the love of money that is the root of all evil’.

In many ways unemployment is not a state of fact it is a state of mind. There are always things that need to be done, or that we enjoy, that employ our time but will not give us tokens or money for doing them. At the end of the day one has money and the other has not yet, that have both been employed for the same amount of time.

In that sense we are all employed. Cows, fish, apes, birds, humans we are all employing our time. Sometimes it will be for profit as food, shelter, money or stuff and sometimes it will be hobbies, pleasure and fun, and I guess I should include illness and recovery, it is all employment, it is all using our time.

In a money economy we are often driven to do things that we don’t really want to do to get the money. This can often be at the root of our lack of motivation to get going once we have been out of a money producing role due to illness, retirement, redundancy and so on. I have worked with many women who have been employed raising a family and running a home who, when the last child leaves home, feels the need to return to earning again, yet the roles and options open to them do not excite them and make them want to go out and do them.

I guess this is why Ed and I describe ourselves as ‘unemployed’ because we both do what we want to do and we both enjoy what we do, so for us we are just living not working. Some of our life is paid and some is given for free.

In this episode my resource was one of my favourite books by Joe Vitale called ‘The Attractor Factor’. This is a good work book that asks you questions that require that you look at what you are and what you are doing now and then gets you to hone down your ideas until your are really clear about what it is that you ‘really’ want to do.

When you know the answer to that question you are at that point when you join us in the ranks of the paid unemployed because you are now no longer working you are living. It is just that you get paid for it.

So often getting motivated is not about ‘pull yourself together’, or ‘get a crack on’, it is about actually wanting to do it. We just need to decide what the ‘it’ really is. Then life begins to make sense and you can work towards becoming the version of you that you really want to be.

So, ask yourself the question:
“What do you really, really, really want from your life?” Your happiness and fulfilment just might be in your answer.

Take care and be happy

Sean X

Dealing with Chronic Pain

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What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Imagine that you are hammering in a nail when you slip and hit your thumb. You jump up and down, suck your finger, say a few blue words, you shake your hand and carry on hammering.

Now, imagine that someone is holding down you hand so that you can’t move it. Someone else comes towards you with a hammer and while looking you in the eyes hits your thumb half as hard.

Which one do you think would hurt the most?

Pain is a sensation. Just like heat or cold. Your nervous system registers that something is happening and it sends that message to your brain.

Strangely pain is not experienced in your nervous system it is experienced in your brain. However it does not really feel like that.

There is a scene in the Gormenghast Books by Mervyn Peake when the guru is sat with his students telling them that pain is all in the mind. One of his students is getting angry and feeling mischievous, he strikes a match and leans forward and sets light to the guru’s beard. The guru dies screaming in pain.

We know that it is possible to disassociate from pain. People walk on coals and lie on beds of nails. We also see that people have different thresholds of pain. Some can deal with huge levels of pain while others fall apart with the smallest injury.

I guess that pain is telling us that something is wrong, that we need to pay attention to it and do something about it.

Pain is not always physical. We might have emotional pain, mental pain, social pain, financial pain and so on.

This week Belinda joined us on the podcast. Belinda is a pain therapist using massage and touch to help people deal with and release their pain. The thing that she describes is how we hold emotional pain in our muscles and joints, This was of great interest to me as the relationship that she described between feeling and muscle tension matched the Ayurvedic work I had done in my training. This explained the psychological and emotional connections that are expressed in different parts of the body as chakras or bio energy centres. The body areas related to chakras are quite precise but in simplistic terms they are as follows:

1: Root Chakra
Sited in the perineum the sensations are in the buttocks anus and gonads.
The pain in these areas would be seen as being repressed physical or sexual energy.
May also effect the chin and jaw.

2: The Bioenergetic Chakra
Sited an inch below the navel covers the small of the back, kidneys, bladder and the sciatic nerve effecting the back of the legs down into the arch of the foot, kidneys, adrenal glands and bladder.
The pain in these areas would be seen as being fear and anxiety related to social interactions that may include fight and flight and social and sensual conflicts.
May also effect the teeth, gums and lips.

3: The Solar Plexus Chakra
Sited over the diaphragm, effects the upper part of the lower back, the pancreas and the front of the legs right down to the top of the foot to the toes.
The pain in this area would be seen intellectual tension, boredom, being fixed and stuck, overdosed on routine.
May also effect the upper maxillary bone.

4: The Heart Chakra
Sited in the middle of the sternum, covers the thymus, heart and lungs (cardio vascular system) respiration, blood pressure, liver and spleen, and the area from the middle of the back through the under arm to the palm of the hand.
The pain in the area would be seen as associated with self image, self esteem, levels of consciousness and emotion hurt or burden.
May also effect the nose and the breathing in general such as with asthma.

5: The Throat Chakra
Sited at the base of the neck, covers the thyroid and the neck, upper back and the area through the shoulder down the upper arm through the back of the hand to the fingers and nails.
The pain in this areas would be seen as associated with duty, responsibility, the need to be authoritative, organised and successful and is often related to statues and standing in chosen profession.
May also effect the eyes and the ears.

6: The Head Chakra
Sited in the centre of the forehead, covers the pituitary, the head generally, eyebrows, and the centre of the brain and the limbic system.
The pain in this area, that may include headache and epilepsy, is related to issues of deep sensitivity, spirituality and the meaning or life and meaninglessness of life.
May also effect the cranial nerves and the forehead below the hairline.

7: The Crown Chakra
Sited at the top of the head on the fontanelle, covers the pineal gland, the hair and the crown of the head.
Pain in this area would be seen as more existential, creativity, genius and madness, imagination, rumination, and sometime fantasy.

While these are my definitions rather than Belinda’s, the manipulation that she describes enables the release of trapped emotion in these different areas of the body, emotions and the mind. Together with some talking therapy body therapists have a tremendously positive effect on pain and also on other Illnesses and syndromes that are expressed in the body.

For us all our body is a guru that, if we listen to it, will teach us much, and when we listen to it and work with it we can release tension, reduce or eliminate pain, and find emotional release.

Take care be happy and let go of your tension and pain

Sean X

Regaining Trust

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On the podcast this week Ed and I were talking about trust and what happens once it has been broken. So much of what we are and what we do in society is based on trust.

On the trading floor of the Baltic Exchange the world’s only independent source of maritime market information for the trading and settlement of physical and derivative contracts commits it’s international community of over 600 members encompasses the majority of world shipping to a code of business conduct overseen by the Baltic that is “My Word Is My Bond”.
In the exchange every deal and transaction on the busy trading floor is done on the trust that what I say I will do. Millions of dollars are traded everyday on this “trust”.

Since 1744 Baltic Exchange members have undertaken to commit to this code of conduct. Those who breach the code are expelled.

We see codes of conduct, or trust, established for many business and professional areas. When we see the doctor we ‘trust’ them to act in our best interests as we do with the solicitor, teacher, financial adviser and so on. When people break the code, or the trust, they are turned out of the group. Priests are “defrocked”, service personnel “court-martialled”, doctors are “struck off” Baltic Exchange members are “expelled”. Even in our social groups we expel those that don’t adhere to the social code. We “send them to Coventry” and we no longer talk to them or acknowledge them.

Trust works, or is broken at all levels of human interaction. The most problematic and therefore the most common in the consulting room is unfaithfulness in relationships. When this contract is broken we call it separation or divorce.

In all forms of broken trust the issue is can we ever put it back together, can we learn to trust again and how will it effect the rest of our life?

This week we received the following email…

My ex wife had an affair that I discovered. Some 2 years after our divorce I’m now with someone else and I find it difficult when she goes out in the evening as I fear she might be unfaithful (even though I have no evidence she would be). I find it tough to deal with that / things are good when we’re together but it’s difficult when we’re apart as my mind imagines all the things that could happen.

In this case the person above, who has been let down, has carried the issue of hurt and loss with them into their next relationship. So often we are loaded with unfinished emotional business from our past that is effecting our present.

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

Trust is a strange thing. It assumes that we can rely on another person to do either what they agreed to do or what we expected them to do. My teacher told me that my need to have trust from others was misplaced and could never be. When I protested he told me that “trust is what happens to a chicken before you put it in the oven!” His point was that a chicken before it is cooked is trussed so that it will not move while being cooked. He said that when we put our trust in other people we truss them into an immoveable position. This is an impossible thing to do because people can never be trussed or fixed. They are moving living breathing, developing, learning beings who will always change and will never stay the same.

When it comes to relationships research shows us that up to 60% of people have affairs. Which means that we have less than a 50% chance of having a faithful relationship. The two questions this raises is why, and can we put it back together after the event?

Why?

When asked ‘why?’ most people say that they needed some attention. For the majority sex was never the issue. If was mainly the feeling that someone wanted them, appreciated them, desired them and most importantly listen to them and made them feel valued and important.

Now, there will be a percentage of people who are serial philanderers who will never truly commit to a relationship, there will be those that are addicted to the dopamine, the love drug, generated at the outset of a new relationship and there will be a percentage of people on the psychopathic spectrum who lack any real empathy.

As the majority of people are not psychopathic, philandering love addicts, we need to look to communication as a key to the maintaining a relationship. It is said that “those who eat together stay together”. In most cases couples who talk and do things together create the emotional bonding that is oxytocin in brain chemistry. Oxytocin is what binds a mother to a child and members of a relationship to each other. Couples who communicate stay together, those with active oxytocin stay together.

Can we put it back together?

The simple answer is normally “no”. However, it does not have to be that way.

In the workplace I get involved in myriad mediation cases that often come to nothing or are at best a papering over the cracks with an agreement for the workers to act professionally with each other in the future. Once the trust has gone the professionalism is a mask.

With couples in the consulting room I find that it is usually fairly clear. Most women seem prepared to give it another go after their man’s infidelity, though it may take them much work and time. There are few men prepared to give a woman another chance. For those that do choose to stay together and have a go at working it out there are some things that need to be done and said.

The new contract
You need a new contract that involves letting go of the past. This is what we deal with in the first step of the live in the present course. Until we let go of that past it will always drag us back and tip us moving forward. It is like a weight that will hold us back.

Forgiveness is hard. If you have never considered it have a look at step one.

Most importantly if you have problems letting go of your past email in and take some time to deal with your issues, don’t allow them to ruin your life.

Take care be happy and do not allow your unresolved past to wreck your present. Deal with it, seek therapy and enjoy your life.

Sean x

How to be Happy

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Is happy news good?

As a psychotherapist I have worked with thousands and thousands of people as individuals, couples and, groups. There have been those that are naturally happy and positive and those who see the world from a negative point of view. Over the years I have learned what it is that makes happy people happy and unhappy people unhappy. Happy people do certain things in certain ways. It is all in how they focus their thoughts and feelings.

It would seem obvious that we would, or should, be attracted to good news. Yet what we see is that “bad news becomes good news” because that is what sells newspapers. Good newspapers commonly only last for about three episodes.

Today in the podcast we were celebrating the third episode of The Happy News Paper,. Both Ed and I hope that it will keep going for many more episodes. We hope to have its founder and inspiration designer Emily Coxhead on the podcast. We highly recommend that you check out Emily and her work with the happy newspaper.

What makes you happy? It is good to review what it is that makes us happy. The Live In The Present book seeks to change the negative into the positive, like an alchemist turning lead into gold. It explains how happiness is a choice. Here are some ideas about happiness.

Positive body image
Happy people move their bodies. Exercise is not necessarily formal, you don’t have to go to the gym or play an organised sport. Taking a walk around the block, taking the stairs and not the lift, having a run or jog rather than walking and walking short distances rather than taking the car or the bus, are all forms of exercise. There are two important benefits that come from exercise. The first is that you don’t build up weight and that keeps your heart, lungs, muscles and joints healthy. The second is that people who move their bodies have higher levels of happy hormones, endorphins, in their brains that make them feel happier. If you are really game for a laugh you can attend a gym, go for more formal cycle rides and runs, walks and rambles, Zumba, Salsa and so on. Moving your body makes you happier.

Who are your friends?
Happy people build powerful social relationships. Human beings are group animals. Just like monkeys and chimpanzees we identify with being part of a group, tribe or family. Having mates and friends gives us a sense of belonging, value and support. We have people to talk to, people to share our problems with, people who will support and care for us. As the world has industrialised and the large extended families have broken into smaller nuclear family units the rate of depression and anxiety have dramatically increased. The W.H.O. is predicting that by 2020 depression could be the second most common cause of death. We know that people living alone, especially men, die younger. Having friends and strong social relationships makes you happier.

When did you last have a challenge?
Happy people do things that challenge who they are. Your brain and your mind are designed to be creative. It is this part of human consciousness that has powered all of evolution. Having a challenge keeps your brain awake.

Gratitude does your body and mind good.
It helps you cope with trauma and stress. Being grateful can increases your sense of self-worth and self-esteem and helps dissolve negative emotions and strengthens the immune system. An attitude of gratitude leads to happy people that overcome pessimistic thinking in three ways, focusing their time on positive energy and thinking in the knowledge that all things pass and no situation however difficult lasts for ever.
Gratitude creates happiness

Mindfulness leads to positive attitudes.
Mindful people develop healthy coping strategies, encounter stressful issues positively. Happy people become skilled at seeing the good that might come from challenging times. Mindful people take care of their mind and body and manage their stress. Mindfulness helps you focus on what you really want.

Most importantly, what you feed grows and what you starve dies. If you read bad news papers your focus will be on the negative. If you choose to read good news your focus will be on the positive.

Thoughts become things, what you think about you bring about.

Many people who wake up to the negativity that is in regular news stop listening to news broadcasts and reading newspapers altogether. My stance is that I need to be informed but not inundated with negative messages. And, I like to tune into some good news because it makes me happy.

What do you choose to focus on? Positivity is a choice.

Take care and be happy

Sean X

This is not about ‘us’ and ‘them’!

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In the EU debate are you an ‘innie’ or an ‘outie’?

I will own up to my own position at the outset, I am an ‘innie’.

I don’t think that we Brits are that good at inclusion. We will tell ourselves what good chaps we are and can list or recite all the good things that we have done in the world and for the world. Yet, as an island community we do tend to see ourselves as separate from the rest of the world and also, as we wrestle with the idea that we are no longer an empire and that Brittania no longer rules the waves, we see ourselves as being able to punch above our weight. Perhaps now is a time for a little readjustment.

The countries that form mainland Europe do not have a sea between them to protect them from one and other, subsequently they have had to learn to co-operate in ways that we on the Island have not needed to. That cooperation has, at times, broken down and led to major conflicts such as the First and Second World Wars. That is why the idea of a European community was formed.

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organisation founded on 10 January 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first international organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. Its primary goals, as stated in its covenant, included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament. (Wikipedia)

This first attempt to create peace in Europe failed and the world fell into the Second World War which began when Germany made an unprovoked attack on Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany after Hitler had refused to abort his invasion of Poland. The Second World War was, it seems, to do with the clashing ideologies of fascism and dictatorship versus democracy. The fascist countries of Germany, Italy and Japan banded together in an attempt to dominate and rule the world.

The big idea behind the EU (and ultimately the Euro) is a simple one. If you get nations to trade and share their institutions, then they are less likely to go to war. Co-operation rather than confrontation was the order of the day. It seems to be a valid principle, as Western Europe has been at peace for nearly seventy years and counting. (http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/why-the-euro-was-created.html:)

The principle of collective self interest makes sense to me. It feeds into my basic life philosophy that if we all look after each other then we will all be okay. The problem with all groups is that either you are in or out of the group which creates ‘us’ and ‘them’. We see this with all groups, black vs white, gay vs straight, men vs women. This sense of separation is the human problem. Religion has, and continues to, create move division in the world. I wonder how many people have been killed over time for religious reasons and how many wars have been waged because “God is on our side”.

The myth of us and them

For the last few months I have been listening to people around me talking about the EU as “them” when “they” are actually “us”. The way the systems works is that there is an agreed democratic forum that we belong to, it is a parliament. We, like all other member countries appoint european MPs through our voting system. These MPs represent us and vote on all the laws that effect us and every other member of the European community.

We pay our taxes into the system, as does every other country, and we get money back, as does every other country. The xenophobic element in each member country wants the autonomy of not being subject to the group and wants out, they want to leave. That seems to leave us with two fundamental choices.

1: we return to the pre war situation of individual countries vying for their own self interest and potentially recreate the same issues that caused the world wars.

2: we work together within the European Community and beyond to bring people together and avoid the conflict of ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Staying in the EU will involve communication, argument and debate. It might not be easy but as members within the group we retain the ability to change it. Leaving the group leaves us isolated and we become on of ‘them’ being outside of the group with little or no influence to effect or change the evolution or Europe.

Nightmare Brexit Scenario

How about this, we leave Europe, Scotland decides to leave us and rejoin Europe. Wales could easily follow as the Welsh assembly is now recognised as the Welsh parliament. Northern Ireland could also choose to join Europe. Even Cornwall, that has its own flag and its own status with Europe could rejoin Europe. The Channel Islands would also, probably, join Europe. The USA have made it clear that they would seek other areas of influence if we are not in the EU. That would leave England as a small country off the coast of Europe with the 14 protectorate communities around the world.

I keep hearing that we are the fifth largest economy, though some statistic say that we are the ninth, but that includes all of the United Kingdom. If what is left is simply England it becomes quite small.

Of course I could be completely wrong and leaving maybe the best option. We will only know after today’s vote.

In or out be happy and take care

Sean x

The Rhythm of Life

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In this weeks podcast we had Steve with us, the master drummer who spends his time helping people find their beat, lovely guy doing amazing work!

The universe has a beat, it has a rhythm. The whole of creation moves at a pace. This is the rhythm of life. Are you living in time or out of time?

If you stop, become still and listen you will hear your own heart beating. Some people, when they are learning to meditate, find this eerie or disturbing. Every time that your heart beats it gives off a little electrical signal that goes off into the universe just like the ripples flowing from a stone that has been dropped into a pond. This is your call sign that states to the universe that you exist, that you are alive. This is you individual rhythm.

When a group of people or animals come together they begin to harmonise their rhythm. Heart rate, blood pressures and hormonal excretions become more alike. We all know the story of a house full of female students, or a nunnery when, over time, the menstrual cycles of the women begin to fall in line and they develop periods in unison.

The same is true of all groups. When I run a course I have the three week rule, no new members after week three. This is because within three sessions the group bond has been formed. What that really means is that the group has begun to harmonise together so that when they enter each session their heart rates, respiration and many hormones will be matching and harmonising.

Once any group has formed the emotional experience is that we are now an ‘us’ and anyone new that joins feels odd, they are one of ‘them’. Groups even begin to smell the same and we may experience that other groups, nationalities or ethnicities smell different to ‘us’. I have an image hear of dogs smelling each other’s bottoms and what they know from doing so. I know that if you dropped me anywhere in France I would know that I am there because France has a smell that is peculiar to itself. It is not a bad smell, quite the opposite, it is just that it smells of France. The same is true in the spices of the east, or the tannery in Kidderminster.

There are ever smaller rhythms within all matter that go right down to the cells, organelles, atoms, particles, quarks and the source energy. The other way the rhythms are ever bigger as the Earth turns and the moon marks the months increasing and decreasing the tides, the earth moves around the sun and the sun around the galaxy and the Galaxy around the universe.

All that happens, on every level happens in time, in beat, it has its own rhythm.

Your individual rhythm is individual and peculiar to you. Those around are either in the same or similar rhythm so that you feel that sense of belonging or it is the other way you feel out of step with those around you they are working in a different rhythm and you feel the odd one out as though you don’t belong.

When you begin a new job it feels odd, you are not yet in rhythm. After a period of induction you feel that you suddenly belong, you have harmonised. In group dynamics psychology gives the process of harmonising the rhythm of groups names – forming, storming and norming. The important word in that is the ‘norming’ or normalising. When we have normalised to the group we have adopted their behaviours ether good or bad. The people that controlled the concentration camps of the Second World War began as normal everyday people who normalised to the brutality and killing of extermination. The monks in an ashram arrived as regular normal people and normalised into mediation, prayer and good deeds.

Often we normalise to what is happening around us below our awareness. The group or heard instinct can be negative as in a riot or positive as the collective response to the giving following a disaster.

Once we understand that the universe at all levels is in beat and time the next question is am I in beat with where I am? That might be mentally, emotionally, physically, sexually, financially and so on. If not, then it is time for change and that will normally mean action, same behaviours will always lead to the same outcomes. When we want a different out come we have to change the behaviours. To do this may simply be the decision to act. Sometimes it will require some mindful meditation and for deeper issues psychotherapy.

Question: how do you know if you are in, or out, of rhythm?

Well, that is what your emotions are for. They tell you if you are in tune or not. In tune equals happiness, fulfilment, contentment and so on. Out of tune equals unhappiness, anxiety, depression and so on.

As King Louis said in the jungle book ‘you gotta get in the beat’.

Finding your rhythm and living it, is the only life lesson that any of us really need to learn. Listen to the beat around you and if it doesn’t make you feel good play a different one.

Take care and be happy

Sean X

How to Live in the Present

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Choice

This weeks podcast included our good friend David who came on the LITP course as a student and then joined the team and led all of the practical exercises. We were talking about how doing the course had changed his life. The issue that it raised for me is that of choice.

Many of us see our lives as simply the way that it is. In mindfulness everything is a choice.

The way you feel, what you think, the way you act is all a choice.

The issues of the mirror exercise was raised. This is the idea that when you get out of bed the first thing that you do is go to the bathroom mirror, look yourself in the eyes and say “I love you”. Many people will say that they find it difficult if not impossible. When this happens we can find many reasons why we can’t do it.

The bottom line is that we choose all that we experience in life. Thoughts become things. We have decided what we will see in the mirror before we get there. This, in my mindfulness courses, I describe as composure.

Composure
Before someone sits down to meditate they have to prepare. This includes preparing their environment. Where will you practice, how it is lit, how it will smell, what to sit on, what to wear, will there be sounds. We are preparing by getting our attitude right letting go of any negative thought, feeling or resistance to the practice. When we do not get the composure right the practice is not so good.

Below our awareness we compose ourselves before we do anything. Before we eat, before we go to the theatre, before we watch a TV programme and so on. You did it before you read this blog.

The point is that we are making choices all the time whether or not we realise it.

In awareness, we realise that we have choice. Every moment of every day, in all events, all the time, we have a choice. Either we make decisions that serve us well or those that serve us badly. And, we can decide to change at anytime to make life better.

You may want to go back to the episodes on the podcast where you can do the LITP course and use it to audit where you are in life.

Be happy and remember that life is always a choice.

Take care

Sean X

Fear of the unknown – the EU debate

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This week Ed and I were talking about the EU referendum and the Brexit campaign and the fear that we hear around us about the fear of change and the unknown.

Are you a ‘innie’ or an ‘outie’? Most of the people around me are talking about our relationship with Europe from the fear of immigration.

It would seem that xenophobia is alive and well as we decide about whether or not we leave the EU. Dislike of, or prejudice against, people from other countries is what I hear from those around me is, in my opinion, the most destructive emotion that humanity can have. Many of us seem to be currently obsessed with keeping our borders shut to outsiders as though we own this country, yet we are all outsider.

The original peoples of Britain as far as I can understand it were the Celts, Gaels and the Picts. The Gaels and Picts were collectively known as the Gaels, or Gauls. These people inhabited Gaeland, which later became Scotts and Scotland. These other Gaelic people that lived across the British Isles were collectively known as Celts.

If we assume that these Gaelic speaking people were the original inhabitants of the British Isles what happened to them? Why are they now only in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany?

Well, from just before the first century, successive arrivals or invasions from other countries gradually pushed these Celtic people from their homeland of England into Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. The Romans invaded Britain in 55bc and remained here until 410 AD. Following their departure Germanic invasions in the form of Jutes, Angles and Saxons began and the nation of Angle-land or Eng-land began with a developing identity and language.

Around 790 the Vikings started invading and controlled vast areas of the country known as the Dane Geld. The Normans appeared in 1066 with Willian the Conquerer who defeated Harold the Anglo-Saxon King, at the battle of Hasting. Following the Norman invasion of 1066 another Danish invasion in 1069.

These great influxes of new people to these Islands were violent and involved war and occupation. However these were followed by further influxes of people from all over the world that were encouraged and enjoyed.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there were waves of Jewish immigration from the Pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. In 1951 there was the first phase of encouraged immigration from the West Indies. Followed by waves of Asian immigration as people were expelled from Kenya and Uganda in 1972.

It becomes clear that Britain, like most countries in Europe, is a melting pot, of nationalities and that no one here can truly call them-selves a native Britain. My own ancestral line includes Chinese, Negro, Irish/Celt, Jewish and Viking, yet I see myself as British.

I get it that the resources of any country are limited and that the rate of immigration needs to be regulated but I don’t see that as a reason to leave Europe.

It seems to me that the human family in all its shapes, colours and sizes with all its religions, philosophies and theories, it’s arguments and disagreements is, in the end, the same family. We are all brothers and sisters and strangers are only family that we have yet to meet. The wellbeing of humanity is served best by people coming together not separating.

Staying in Europe may be difficult and maybe a challenge, it may require communication, negotiation and frustration but that is the human story. If Europe returns to the self interested countries that existed before the First World War we are simply recreating the very conditions that led to war in the first place and look where that got us, first the depression followed by the Second World War.

My nightmare scenario would be that we succeed from Europe, Scotland succeeds from the UK followed by Wales and maybe even Cornwall that has been given special status by the EU. That would leave England alone, a small island off the coast of Europe.

We assume that we have a special relationship with the USA. Well, all relationship are conditional and if we are outside of Europe I suspect that the relationship would be a little less special that it is now. If you follow that with the possibility that Trump in the White House perhaps there is no relationship at all.

Whether we remain in or out of Europe the need for human beings to look after each other and to work towards a common unity will be the only thing that will save humanity from destruction and extinction. War and the illusion that self-interest is a good idea has to be the most outmoded thought process on the planet. Yet, many of us hang on to it learning nothing at all from history.

Whether or not you vote in or out share your love with those around you. We might just be able to create heaven on Earth.

Take care and be happy

Sean X

Are you selfish enough?

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You are being selfish, is that so bad?

Is it wrong to be paying attention to your own wants, needs, and well-being? If you believe that selfish behaviour is immoral or bad then you may be just missing the point. The question is what is life all about?

When you were born your life was, and is, about you and your fulfilment and happiness. We often believe that a good person is someone who thinks of others first. It is as though it is more blessed to give than to receive. Is that really true

I like the idea that charity begins at home. In the idea that I can only allow you to love me, if I love me first. If I don’t love me then how can I allow you to love me As well? If I don’t love me and you say “I love you”, then I will think that your are mad. Why on earth would you want to love or like me if I see myself as not good enough?

Thinking of yourself first seems to contradict the idea of positivity, something that we Brits can see as arrogance. Yet what becomes clear is that self-prioritising and attending to your own needs and wellbeing allows you to be emotionally fit enough to attend to the needs of others.

There is an odd paradox.

We all do what we do because we (selfishly) feel that it is the right thing to do

When Mother Theresa looks after the poor of Calcutta it is not that she is a saint, it is that she is doing what she feels is the right thing for her to do. What we see as saintliness may just as easily be termed selfishness.

For example I choose to work with others as a therapist. Many people will tell me and others that I am a wonderful person waxing lyrical about what a good chap I am. The reality is that I choose to use my life energy to support other -people because it makes me feel good or I would not do it. It is based on my basic belief that…

If we all look after each other then we will all be ok

Selfishness is actually normal and as it should be. The positive people do what they do because it makes sense to them to do it. In that sense we are all ultimately selfish.

I believe that we are all selfish. We all do what we do because it makes sense to us. The doctor, banker, nurse, businessman, care mechanic, shop worker…..

Mindful selfishness
When our own needs and desires are in tune with other people so that the things that we are doing are of benefit to others then we are a positive influence. Those that are truly mindful are able to move beyond their own ego need to include the needs of others.

If I am selfish and my self includes my family, community, culture, my religion, my nation, or even the whole of humanity then I identify you as myself. If I identify you as myself why would I want to hurt you, be unhappy, go to war with you, allow you to starve or be homeless.

At the point where human beings are totally selfish and see all of creation as them self then we have got the point of being alive and being a part of creation. We are all one and we all care for each other as we care for ourself.

Be selfish and look after yourself

Sean X