Thoughts on competition – is it healthy?

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We are told by science that life is based on the survival of the fittest. The assumption seems to be that the strongest will survive while the weak go to the wall, that the strong will dominate the weak and therefore spread their genes. This leads us to believe that life is a competition and that those who dominate will win. Perhaps there are other ways of looking at it.

I am not a religious person, for me religion and sectarianism is responsible for much of the world’s suffering, though I would own up to being spiritual. For me God is made in man’s image yet spirituality, or the original energy of creation is always there. It would seem that the unlimited expression of logic and the bloody obvious is that we all come from a common source, common route. Though some like to call this energy ‘God’ in quantum physics they call this ‘source energy’. Pick whatever word or concepts serves you best, the point is that if we all come from the same source and are therefore all the same thing. So, what exactly are we competing against?

I get it that human consciousness is, as yet, pretty un-evolved and that in the fullness of time we might learn to look after each other and be supportive rather than killing, fighting, warring and allowing others to go hungry or lack water to drink. But not just yet! Is it a human competition that some of us survive and some of us do not?

The world of sport is also the world of competition. To have a winner you have to have a loser. If nine people run a race there will be one winner, who we assume is happy, and eight losers who probably are not. Doesn’t seem like good odds to me.

Does it have to be competition?
The idea that evolution has to be driven by competition could be turned on its head. What about if evolution was driven by co-operation.

When you look at the relationship between an insect and flower it seems that they have evolved symbiotically to meet each other’s needs. Just look at our own bodies. According to the BBC…

…humans are teeming with bugs, including tiny spiders,
lice and microbial colonies. Far from being a hazard,
however, they are the making of you.

Bugs are all over us and inside of us.

Every square centimetre of your face houses one or two tiny spiders.

From your head to your toes, your body is a veritable jungle of flora and fauna. Some are visitors, some are permanent residents, but all are enough to make the average person queasy. Whether we like or not, our bodies are perfect environments for the creepy and crawly. For hundreds of thousands of years, these animals have called our bodies home—or at least “food.” This list isn’t comprehensive, but it will give you a taste of the pests that are having a taste of you.

The relationship between us and these bugs, creates both illness and health. For example your gut flora. Experts are discovering the powerful role these tiny bugs might be playing in our lives. The 1,000-or-so species of microbes that live in our guts control digestion…

…so that when we rip out our gut flora with antibiotics we are encouraged to take probiotics to put them back. We and the bugs that live within us have evolved together to our mutual advantage.

Disease
Just as there are bugs that live on us and with us in a symbiotic relationship there are also bugs that harm us, those that do not serve us well. These bugs are not involved with co-operation but competition. They challenge us for our health and perhaps even for our lives. This is not co-operation.

Bigger than bugs
Human beings have lived with, and evolved with, rats, mice, pigs and dogs. We all have grown together. Rats helped clear up our mess, good effect, but they also carried the fleas that led to the Black Death, bad effect. We kill rats because we see them as in competition with us rather than seeing our relationship as a co-operation.

Having discussed this issue with a good friend, I have come to the conclusion that competition and co-operation exist in balance and both compliment each other. We discussed how the competition of war creates co-operative collaboration that leads to breakthroughs in technology that maybe both medicine or weaponry. Many such breakthroughs were brought about by the Cold War.

Competition will always be with us, we can’t avoid it. But, we can choose to develop greater levels of co-operation. Perhaps we can create less war, more caring and more sharing. If I see my fellow human beings as people that I might like to look after rather than beat then the word might just be a happier, safer place to live in.

Take care

Sean X

Is Sex Overrated?

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A listener emailed in and asked Ed and I to talk about sex and whether or not it was an overrated pastime. A very interesting question.

We live in a sexualised society
In a world that is dominated by sexual imagery in all ares of life from art to advertising it would be easy to assume that sexuality was at the forefront of all our minds. The news seems to be full of celebrities and others influential people who have performed sexual misdemeanours. To make sense of this I think we need to separate the emotional concepts of sex and love and dig a little deeper into how our sexual behaviour developed in our evolutionary past.

The sex contract
The study of evolutionary psychology suggests that sexual behaviour and practise developed specifically and if the theory is to believed was driven by women.

The difference between the human female and all other female primates is that human women are always on heat or in season, they are always sexually available even at times of the month when they are not fertile. Mammals come into season and are the sexually available.

The sex contract is this: A woman gave her self sexually and exclusively to one man in return for protection and food. She would be in the cave looking after the kids and the in-laws while he was out chasing the mammoth for dinner. In this are the seeds of the multi-tasking female and the mono-tasking male, they developed different brains.

For the man to be successful in his role the man would need to have fairly high levels of aggression that might include anger an violence. Now, something magical developed. When a woman has sex and orgasms she is energised and able to get up and get on with things. When a man ejaculates he releases hormones that make him sleepy and more docile. It is assumed that the woman controlled the man’s aggression by giving him a good sexual ‘seeing to’ and reducing his aggression.

The development of pleasure
The pleasure incentive that is created in either sexual activity or the visualisation of sexual activity is dopamine, which is known as the love drug. If you recall in other podcasts you will remember that dopamine is the endorphin associated with all forms of addiction. In this sense sex is addictive and that means ‘habit’. The man coming back from the hunt learns to expect sex as a reward for his efforts and build it into his system. Mother nature uses both the glans in male anatomy and the clitoris in female anatomy to create and enhance the pleasure in the sexual act of reproduction.

Sexual attraction
We now know that a large part of sexual attraction is pheromonal, that is to like the smell of each other. This can become confused when we meet someone in a club who is covered in perfumes and deodorants designed to make them smell attractive.

The following morning when the false perfumes have faded and the real body smell/odour appears they may lose all their former attractiveness. Research shows us that we are most attracted to people whose genome and therefore their smell is least like our own.

The closer their genotype the less attractive they appear to us. It is assumed that this is natures way of not messing with the gene pool and creating genetic abnormalities that happen in incestual relationships and is the basis of the taboo that you do not have sex with your relatives.

Sex and love
When we first meet someone we experience the frantic sex drive that is powered by dopamine. This first phase is the creation of the bond between a couple that leads to the exclusivity of “we are partners”. If the relationship is insecure so that the participants are not sure whether it is on or off then the levels of dopamine will remain high. This usually means that the need for continued sex remains high. As relationships become established and secure we developed relaxed sex that is powered by the endorphin oxytocin. This is the bonding chemical. Couples that are secure and well bonded have high levels of oxytocin in their systems.

Dopamine sex tends to be highly erotic and orgasmic and bouncing of the walls. Oxytocin sex is more prolonged and sensual involving higher levels of foreplay and after play, cuddle and kissing. Oxytocin couples touch more, hold hands and hug.

So, is sex overrated?

I reckon people have sex for different reasons. The old sex contract is no longer relevant women do not, in urbanised societies need the protection of rough tough men as they once did. So, I think that sex can have lots of functions…

  • Physical, stress releasing and orgasmic/erotic
  • Sensual warm and soft, re-affirming belonging and support
  • Experimental, fun and variety
  • Passionate loud and demanding
  • Dutiful, sensible
  • Deeply intuitive
  • Inspirational, creative and Tantric

I guess that to be celibate is to also have a sexual identity and to engage in ‘sex for one’ as a lone activity is also sexual activity.

Sex, like most things is in the eye of the beholder and only truly becomes over-rated when we over rate it. Up to that point it is purposeful and meaningful and great fun.

If you are sexually active, then, enjoy your sexuality.

Take care,
Sean x

Valentines Day – Did you feel the love?

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Well last weekend was Valentines Day (14th), the day of love, how was it for you? In our last episode Ed and I were talking about mood boosts and love, feeing loved, being loved and sharing love are right at the top of positive mood, self esteem, raised energy and wellbeing. The magic is in ‘feeling’ loved. Someone may love you desperately but unless they love you in a way that works for you then you simply will not feel it.

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

How do you know that you are loved?
What do you want your partner, or lover to mean when they say “I love you”?
Is love for you a simple one stranded thing or is it multi-faceted?
How many strands does it have?
What are they?

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

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

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

It is not being loved that is important
It is feeling loved that counts

Example: A common problem
Woman: “I feel unloved and hurt when you fail to put a X on the end of a text”
Man: “That just feels like you a trying to control my emotions. I only put an ‘X’ there when I am really feeling it. It is meaningless if I always put it there because in the end it just means nothing.”
Therapist: “How about if it is important to your partner to see an ‘X’ and if you do love her and care about her would the act of simply adding an ‘X’ be something that you know would make her feel happy and good. Is it therefore not worth doing?”

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

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

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

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

Do you need to be told that you are loved?
Do you tell your partner?
Do you feel that by saying it too often that you will wear it out and that it becomes meaningless?
Do you feel that by saying it you are re-affirming your connection and positive feeling?
Do you do things that may seem silly or meaningless to you, because you know that it will make your partner happy?
Do you feel that you should only act in love when you feel the love?

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

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

Suggestion:
How about you ask your partner “How do you know that I love you?” Or you could get more direct and ask them if there are things that they would like you to do so that they would feel more loved.
There are two sides of this coin. You might also share with them that when they do certain things they make you feel loved, unless you tell them already.

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

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

However you share you love, I hope that Valentines Day confirmed the love that others have for you. And if it didn’t there are plenty more days in the year, love isn’t just for Valentines Day.

Take care

Sean X

How to boost your mood

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In the world of mindfulness the acknowledgement that ‘thoughts become things’ leads to the understanding that we are all responsible for our own feelings. All that we think, feel and do will boost our mood either positively or negatively. The point is one of choice. It is only in awake-ness that we realise we have a choice. Up to that point of awakening we are simply on a default setting and do what we do because that is what we learn to be. So when we boost positively, how do we do it? Magically in Ayurvedic philosophy we have the answer to that it is in the different levels of mind, body and emotion that is called the chakra system. I’ll start from the bottom end and work up.

1: Muladhara – Base chakra – Red – Perineum – Gonads – Karma
This is your physical body, the meat and bones, the solid hardware of who you are. The mood boost at the red level is physical health. The mood boost here is to be fit and health. Choices include weight, diet and exercise. It is said that a healthy body equals a healthy mood. If you choose to be unhealthy and over weight and not exercise your mood will be down. If you choose to exercise be fit and eat well your mood will rise. If you develop a good relationship with your body doing a bit of exercise will raise you mood quickly.

2: Svadisthana – Energy chakra – Orange – Just below your navel – Adrenals – Hatha
This is your energetic body. When you add energy to the body, orange to red, you have life. in separation you have death. The energy at this level has several names – Bio-Energy, Chi, Ki, Prana, Etheric energy, Auric energy. Emotionally this is sensuality. It is a world of touch that includes massage and healing but also friendship, groups and belonging, social networks and family. When we become tense, when the meat and bones of the red level ache and are sore it is because the orange energy is blocked or is not flowing. When we get our body moving in exercise we allow the energy to flow. The social interactions of exercise classes enhances this effect. Zumba, Aerobics, Yoga and so on are all group activities that feed orange energy. At the level of a couple the act of making love, orgasm and most importantly foreplay and after play all allow for free flowing orange energy. To boost you mood at this level you need to develop and nurture your relationships and pay attention to the tensions in your body and do something about them, go for a massage, join a club, make love.

3: Manipura – Perceptual chakra – Yellow – Solar Plexus – Pancreas – Janana
This is the extrovert intellectual world of experience that includes words like, new experience, challenge, difference, newness, novelty and fun. When we have low yellow energy we may feel bored, tarnished, lack energy and feel subject to the same old, same old feeling of ground hog day.
The experience of perpetual routine, repetition and feeling trapped in a position or circumstances will create a low yellow mood. Boosting your yellow mood means fun, newness and challenge. Studying, learning new skills, taking up a hobby, reading a new book, meeting new people, when did you last do something new, play or do something just for the fun of it?

4: Anhatta – Emotional chakra – Green – Heart – Thymus – Bhakti
Agatha means ‘the unstuck sound’ it is the essence of self, of who you are. It is often expressed as the ego as either confidence, arrogance, or service, love and care, which is termed ‘Bhakti’ in Ayurveda. When our green mood is low we tend to become depressed, lack confidence and feel a lack of value or worth. Low green also means lack of energy and fatigue and is related to M.E. Chronic fatigue and the various myalgias. Green health comes from doing things that you can feel proud of. It might be achievements that come with great accolades or it might be the simple acts of giving or care. The law of attraction suggest that in giving we attract more of the same back to ourselves. To give love leads to receiving love. To give money leads to receiving money. When we feel in a low green mood often we become boosted by doing something for others. Unattached, egoless giving to others raises and boosts our mood.

5: Vishuddi – Cognitive chakra – Blue – Base of throat – Thyroid – Mantra
This is the internalised mind, cognition and conception, it is the store of information and long term memory. It is also the part of ourself that determines the rules that we live by, our sense of morality and of what is right and wrong. The two things that create the most low blue mood are dishonesty and disorganisation. This maybe our own disorganisation when we are unable to find things or forever turn up late or it might the frustration of the same behaviour from others. Honesty is a huge issue. When someone is unfaithful or let’s us down we can hold that hurt for a lifetime. If we have been dishonest the emotion that follows on is normally guilt and that may also drag us down. The blue part of the personality can easily become fixed. This is the part that comes up with phrases like ‘it is known fact that …’, or ‘everyone knows that’. Such fixed attitudes come from frozen emotion. Often our blue attitudes, concepts and ideas are born of solidified emotion that is the fixing. When these fixed attitudes are moved there is often a huge release of emotion that is termed an ‘abreaction’. Blue health and mood boost comes from being honest with yourself, doing the right thing and living ‘righteously’ thus avoiding feeling of guilt or regret. The second most important thing is learning to let go, as in step one of the live in the present book. While we hold on to past hurts and ideas we are unable to progress and develop as a person. All personal development begins with letting go of the unresolved past – also known as forgiveness.

6: Ajna – Intuitive chakra -Indigo – Centre of forehead – Pituitary – Raja
The intuitive mind is governed by meaning. The meaning of something is the sound behind the music, the substance behind the word, the feeling behind the emotion. It is the knowing without knowing. The heard sound of one hand clapping. Intuition tells us things beyond logic and cognition. The main tool in the intuitive arsenal is empathy. Sympathy is when we resonate with ‘our’ feelings of what ‘you’ are experiencing. Empathy is when we can walk in your shoes and feel what you are feeling directly. Many people who think they are empathic are really sympathetic and are re-interpreting the feelings of others into their own framework. When we have low intuition we have lost, or are losing, the meaning in life. ‘What is the point?’ The extreme of this is suicidal ideation being intuitively healthy is when life feels meaningful and purposeful. Often the key to this is in giving yourself time and value, in looking after your own needs. After all we cannot really look after others unless we feel good in ourselve. When did you last do something for you? What do you do to attend to your own wellbeing? Bottom line is ‘what you feed grows and what you starve dies’. If you want to live happily you need to feed yourself, to feed you emotional, intuitive self.

7: Shasaram – Creative chakra – Violet – Top of the head – Tantra
The creative mind is the tool of visualisation. The word Tantra is often mistaken to be about sexuality, actually it is about creativity. Tantra is the science of the imagination and it is the imagination that is the seed of creativity. In modern mindful psychology you will hear two main concepts. The first is that “thoughts become things” or “what you think about you bring about”. The second is we become what we visualise which is the basis of sports and performance psychology. We are all scriptwriters. Each day when we wake we decide on the day we will have. Before we attend a meeting or an interview we have already decided the outcome. Perhaps we should be saying that it is not thoughts that become things, it is the visualised images that we hold that are the script that we live. After all anxiety is when we imagine a future that may never happen and then live it in the present as though it has. Where as creativity is when we imagine a positive future and then work towards it. When we have a low level creative energy we visualise the worst possible outcomes and then go and live them out. To be creatively healthy we need to focus on those things and events that serve us well and then go and live those out. We are what we imagine ourselves to be.

8: Ashtanga – The whole – White
In the Ayurvedic world these different chakras where considered a path that was described as a. Yoga as in Karma, Hatha, Janana, Bhakti, Mantra, Raja, and Tantra. Each path was considered to be suited to different personality types enabling their self development. The alternative was to study all seven. This was termed Ashtanga or integral. The white signifies the total of all things, like light before it is split through a prism into the seven colours. Each colour is a subset of the whole. The white is the mixed balance of all the colours together. This equates to what we would call spirituality, consciousness or the higher self. It is only when we have boosted and balanced each of the colours that we can achieve or obtain Ashtanga.

Have a good look a yourself. Check your chakras. Which ones are open and working well and which are creating problems for you? The next step is to put things in place that will serve you well, boost your mood and emotions and create the best version of you that thee can possibly be.

Take care, be happy and live in the present

Sean X

Are You Mindful or Mindless?

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Moment by moment, throughout our lives, we choose to invest our energy into being positive or negative. What we feed grows and what we starve dies. Do you choose to be positive or negative? Do you choose to be mindful or mindless?

Mindful people are always part of the answer.
When you are faced with an issue or a problem, perhaps it is for you or maybe for a friend or colleague, do you do your best to see the positive and attempt to make the situation better?

Mindless people are always part of the problem.
Of course it could be that you are so finely tuned into the negative that you always see the worst in every situation and end up saying things that make the situation even worse.

A mindful person always has a plan.
In response to difficult situations some people just go off half cock, headless chicken syndrome, and simply create more difficulties, because they do not plan or think ahead.

A mindless person always has an excuse.
Some people find other to blame, “it was not may fault”, ” I didn’t realise”, “It wasn’t me it was him”. We can always find an excuse or we can take responsibility for our action and who we are and choose to make it right.

Mindful people say: “Let me do it for you.”
When we all look after each other we can create heaven on earth. When you only look after yourself, to the detriment of others, we only create hell.

Mindless people say: “That is not my job.”
When we leave it to others and we expect them to get it right, then, no one’s needs get met. This is the height of mindlessness and the basis of most human problems.

A mindful person sees an answer for any problem.
When we do not have problems but we have challenges and opportunities, they can then lead to solutions and resolutions – life can change if we decide that it will.

A mindless person sees a problem to any answer.
Some people see that nothing is solvable, and that we only have problems, life is a road to hell in a handcart, it will never get better. This is a downward spiral to loss, depression and desperation.

A mindful person says: “It may be difficult but it’s possible.”
Mindful people never, never, never, never give up. Nothing is impossible everything can be solved, all can be achieved, life is good, anything can be solved.

A mindless person says: “It may be possible but it’s too difficult.”
Mindless people do not even give it a chance. They give up at the first hurdle. They assume the worst from the outset. They assume success is not for them. They concentrate and work on failure.

Mindful people see the past as what they learned, they challenge this, do not make it a habit and move forward.
Mindful people learn from what happened, they move forward and do not allow past emotional events to hold them back.

Mindless people remain attached to the past, become depressed and stuck.
Mindful people live in the present and purposefully and positively create their future. They get rid of the past through forgiveness and letting go.

Mindful people see their future with creative potential and positive expectation.
Mindful people see a positive future and bring it into their present and live it now. They assume that with positive intent all will turn out ok.

Mindless people see their future with fear, anxiety and negative expectation.
When we focus on negative futures and feel anxiety in the present we need to use mindfulness to live in the now and be happy. We can never be happy in the future. We can only be happy in the now.

Mindful or Mindless?
It is your choice moment by moment.

To be mindful, effective, and happy, you need to Live In The Present and treat everything that happens to you, whatever it is, as a wonderful opportunity to grow.

Life is good, if we want it to be.

Be Happy – choose mindfulness

Sean X

Struggling with Insomnia?

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When you go to sleep at night you enter a deep sleep cycle known as non rapid eye movement or NREM. This is followed by a dream cycle known as rapid eye movement or REM. The time between going to sleep to the end of the dream cycle varies between 1.5 to 2 hours depending on the individual.

These cycles continue throughout the night so that most people will get between three and four cycles. The first cycle is mainly deep sleep with a little bit of dream and the last cycle is mainly dream. It is assumed that the deep sleep is about body rest and repair and the dream cycle is about emotional rest and repair.

When people become emotionally disturbed the dream cycle eats into the deep sleep cycle. In the extreme people get no rest because they are continually dreaming. The result is that you feel more tired when you wake than when you went to sleep. This often leads to an increasing sleep pattern so that people may end up sleeping for sixteen hours or more each, but getting more and more tired.

This is the most common symptom in all depressive illnesses. For some the sleep state is difficult to enter and although fatiguing it is safe. However some forms of sleep deprivation or insomnia can become life threatening.

Fatal insomnia
The condition occurs when proteins called prions in the brain become misshapen. Similar to CJD they damage the thalamus in the brain. This is the part of the brain that alters systems in the body that induce sleep

The thalamus is linked to the body’s sympathetic nervous system, which controls unconscious actions. It regulates the body’s unconscious actions, including hormone levels, temperature, blood pressure and heart rate. In healthy people, at night, hormone levels alter and blood pressure is dropped to induce slumber. But for those with fatal insomnia, these actions don’t happen and so they remain awake, in a permanent pre-sleep state.

Dream Sleep
If following an emotional disturbance dreams become very vivid and technicolor our rest is lost. When the dreams take over our sleep pattern we are discharged from sleep in the dream cycle and we do not get the rest from the deep sleep that we need. Although we may not remember what we were dreaming about, they still wake us, and unless we quickly write it down they are lost.

The difference between deep sleep and dream sleep is that if we wake in deep sleep we are groggy and may not know who we are or where we are until we orient ourselves. However in this state it is easy to go back to sleep. When we wake in dream sleep we are wide awake as though someone has switched the light on and we find it difficult to go back to sleep.

In this weeks podcast Ed and I talked about insomnia and sleep disturbance and suggest resources that may be of help. Improving and maintaining, your sleep pattern is fundamental to your emotional wellbeing.

Some ways to improve your sleep pattern are…

Do not eat of drink for two hours before you go to bed. Only go to bed to sleep not to read or watch or listen to anything. This creates an emotional association with the bed that it is solely for sleep. Avoid any drinks that include high levels of caffeine or tannin. Get at least half an hour exercise everyday, that means making your heart beat at an exercise rate appropriate to you age and health. Develop deep relaxation or self-hypnosis techniques. Mediate every day for at least twenty minutes. If possible take a siesta or a power nap.

Research suggests, people who have a siesta for about an hour have higher levels of serotonin, the well being endorphin, after their siesta than before. This is also true of the shorter power nap. We now question the emphasis on the Mediterranean diet as to the reason why people there live longer; it may be the effect of siesta as well as the diet.

One last thing using sleeping pills, draughts or drugs serve only to treat the symptom and not the cause. If your sleep disturbance is due to emotional disturbance the most effective cure is psychotherapy.

Take care, live in the present

Sean x

Why do we crave more?

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This week Ed and I were talking about the seemingly endless need that human beings have to always have more. This seems to become extreme at festive time like Christmas and Easter when we see people in the supermarket with trollies stacked high with food and other goods. It’s as though we are all preparing for a segue. Actually the shops are only closed for a day.

There is a sense in which the world has gradually got larger. Certainly with food we have gone from regular size, to family packs, jumbo packs and super size. The packs we buy and the people that we are, just get bigger. Then sadly we read the statistic that over 30% of the food that we buy ends up in the bin.

Not only size but also quantity. Just how many shoes, shirts, coats, bags, and so on do we each need. Ed and I renamed Christmas “Stuffmas” as we each have to find new places to store all the stuff that will be given to us on Christmas Day. So I say “if I can’t eat it or drink it, then I don’t want it” and now I have enough food, drink, biscuit and sweets to feed an army.

It is difficult because the things that are given are done so with love and it is important to learn how to receive as well as to give. I notice that each year more people tell me that they are not buying gifts or sending cards and that they are donating those funds to a project for the poor and needy somewhere in the world.

The need to have, buy, own, give and receive has become embedded in our social psyche. The increase of need and therefore production is the basis of a capitalist economy. Such economies see growth as their aim but they only grow when demand continues to rise. If you listen to the financial news the messages are things like…

“China’s economic growth has slowed last year to only 7%. This has suppressed the price of oil, which has dropped for $100 dollars to $30 a barrel. this means that people are now losing jobs in Aberdeen, Scotland due to the slow down in demand”.

In our system unless there is a growing population the existing population has to buy more to sustain the growth. In Britain we have a population decline. So the financial markets, some time ago, came up with a cunning plan to sustain the systems need for growth. This is called credit.

In the past the economy was stable and grew very slowly if at all. The price of a product remained the same year after year and so wages also stayed the same. Before credit generations of people saved up for what they needed and did not get it, or have it, before they could afford it. Credit allows us to have the future in the present, to live the future in the present, in the now.

Why do we Want to buy more and more all the time?

Buddha’s answer to overcoming the pain of ‘wanting’ is to let go of the future. Indeed to let go of anything that isn’t right here, right now. Credit stops us living in the present. With credit we always have one foot in the future.

I suspect that what we are looking at is an evolutionary need for more.

Imagine that you are part of a hunter gatherer family. The man is out hunting for meat and the woman at home in the cave looking after the kids and the in-laws and going down to the bush to gather nuts and berries and to the water source to fill the pots and pans.

While in the wood the woman sees a large nut tree ready for harvest. Does she only take what she needs to feed her family for that day? Or, does she take more than she needs so that on a day when there isn’t that much food around they can still all eat? This situation also creates a social dilemma. Is she takes more than she needs there will be less for other woman’s families in her community. However, it also means that other families will take all the nuts and there may be none left for her family when she next needs to gather.

This dilemma has several effects.

It creates a need in us to hoard, just like people at Christmas with trollies piled high, but also the food that is wasted, like our 30% that goes in the bin. It also becomes the beginning of commerce as the canny woman takes more than she needs and then sells it, or barters it, to other woman who do not want to, or can’t be bothered to go down to the bush themselves, this is like our shops and supermarkets.

Of course there will be the day when someone has nothing to barter so they give you a signed note saying that they owe you a hen or a bag of nuts. This eventually becomes money. When the barter becomes longer and I have to wait for the returned barter to next harvest, this becomes credit. And if my compensation for waiting so long for my repayment is that you pay me more than you owe me this is called interest and suddenly we have a banking system, a loan system and maybe even loan sharks demanding even higher rates of interest.

The same is just as true for the man getting more meat than his family needs, or having more skins to trade than he needs.

If you look at the need of groups to hoard, be they families, communities, countries and so on, it explains why there are people starving in the world and there are the have’s and have not’s in society. The bottom line is that when we share, when we look after each other, there is enough to go around enough for all and everyone’s needs are met.

The problem, as I see it, is that from the point of view of social evolution we are still back in the mentality of the hunter-gatherer hoarders. It is only when we see others as our self that we look after their needs as well as our own. As long as they remain “them” and not a part of “us” we will take what we need to not taking into account the needs of others.

Be happy and share what you have

Take care

Sean X

The Power of Introversion

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The Universal Balance

The whole of creation is a duality of energy that forms a balance, two halves of a whole. This energy is expressed in many ways:

Male – Female
Yang – Yin
Sun – Moon
Day – Night
Pursha – Praktitti
Consciousness – Unconsciousness
Positive – Negative
Light – Dark
Active – Passive
Introvert – Extrovert
IQ – EQ

This list of universal opposites is endless because this principle is in all aspects of creation, therefore it is in all things, science, philosophy, psychology, everywhere you look.

In western society we place predominance on the importance of extroversion. Many westerners see the doers, the go-getters, as the model to aspire to. The life and soul of the party the socialites and the celebrities are on the front pages and on the TV in Big Brother and Get me out of here. People use Facebook and other social media to express themselves as extroverts to a greater, often world audience as they live their lives out on-line.

Programmes such as Come Dine With Me and Four In a Bed, caters for that extrovert need for a little fame, to be “that person” who was on the telly.

Along with this is the extrovert expressions of fashion and wealth. Having the right house, car, handbag or accessory. This seems closely followed by the need to change body appearance with hair dyes, piercing, lip fillers, Botox and boob jobs. The self-adornment of visible tattoos, like all adornments, is shouting out “look at me”.

If extroversion is seen as so important then how do we view the introvert?

Extrovertion is the active energy that goes out and does things. Introvertion is the energy that is the passive, solid foundation of society. Often these opposites work together. “Behind every great man is a great woman”. Take the gender out and it means behind every great extrovert is a great introvert. It works all the time, Chief exec = extrovert PA = introvert.

When the extroverts have finished beating each other to death the Introverts go onto the battle field to attend to the wounded and clear up the mess.

The confident introvert
We should not confuse introvertion with lack of confidence or a passivity with lack of action. Consider the cocktail party. One person comes into the room, the extrovert, in a big way, loud and maybe brash. The sound behind their actions is “I am here, I am important, pay me attention, show me that you care about me”. On the other side of the room a person sits quietly observing and hating to others. This is the introvert. The sound behind their actions is, “I do not need to display who I am to gain the attention of others, I am comfortable with my self”. Extroverts need to get their validation from the ‘outside in’ and introverts get their validation from the ‘inside out’, they don’t need others to tell them that they are ok.

There will be extroverts who aren’t confident and introverts that are, but you get the point?

The two paths of Buddhism
I have seen this is in Buddhism but also in other disciplines. There is the school of thought that lives the extrovert life out in the world working with others and the introvert path of prayer meditation and often isolation. To the western mind the active path of working with others seems to make sense. While the inner path of contemplation can be seen as non-productive. If you have read ‘The Secret’ or have looked at quantum physics, mindfulness or neurological psychology you will already have realised that consciousness through thought and intent can directly effect the physical matter around us, including our bodies. It is not simply a genetic issue. Those that appear younger than their years do so because their thoughts are still young, they are open to learn. This is the living example of “thoughts become things”. Quantum physics also suggest that our thoughts and feelings are directly effecting the thoughts and feelings of others both positively or negatively. If you spend your day working in a negative environment you will eventually become negative yourself.

The consciousness mind bank
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the father of Transcendental Meditation (TM) maintained that if six million people would all meditate at the same time the effect of their positive mind bank would be strong enough to effect the destiny of human consciousness and the state of the world.

Six million is a lot of introverts having an active effect.

Like most things they work best in balance. We are composed of both qualities and we are balanced when we use both appropriately. We need enough extrovertion to do what we need to do actively and enough introvertion to feed our inner being.

Be balanced and be happy

Sean X

Struggling for Willpower? This might help…

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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.

New Years resolutions require that we let go of all the emotional baggage that we are carrying from last year, to enable us to move forward into the New Year and our new achievements.

Once you decide on your resolutions your goals will become within your reach. In fact once you know where you want to go and what you wish to achieve then achieving them 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.

2: Write it down – when you write something down you are reinforcing your intention to achieve in your conscious mind.

3: Focus on one thing at a time – don’t allow yourself to become confused and overloaded, or distracted.

4: Pick your tasks logically – make a plan and stick to it.

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.

6: Educate yourself – Make sure you develop the knowledge and skills required to complete your goal.

7: Keep it simple – start with simple tasks, worry about the difficult ones once you have started.

8: Ask advice from and listen to other people – Anything else that you need to know can be learnt on the way.

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.

Be persistent and consistent – until the goal is completed.

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

Happy New Year
Enjoy your achievements

Sean. x

New Year 2016

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You Can’t Have New Beginnings Without Endings

Each New Year we talk about new beginnings. About how we need to look forward to the year to come, make resolutions and build the future that we want and desire. For many of us this never really happens and each year becomes the same old, same old as years slide seamlessly one year to the next.

I have become more aware of how my clients, and come to that all of us, are forever hampered in our attempts to go forward because we are attached to the past. Unresolved emotional pasts are either holding us back like anchors on a cruise ship or we are left dragging them around like an iron ball on a chain. In either event struggling against an immoveable anchor or dragging an extreme weight is tiring and debilitating leading to fatigue and ultimately depression.

This has a huge physical and emotional impact on our ability to live in the present, enjoy who and where we are, and leads to many physical and psychosomatic conditions. Some estimates suggest that up to 60% of visits to primary care are for emotional not physical problems. Yet these emotional issues are treated with physical medication to deal with the physical symptoms rather than more appropriately making referrals to psychological medicine.

Symptoms such as depression, tiredness, fatigue, M.E. Chronic fatigue, the various forms of myalgia, muscle tensions, back ache, headache, asthma, skin eruptions, insomnia, disorders of the gut…I could go on forever, are either totally, partially, are at last exacerbated by our overloaded emotions and our inability to let go of what was and embrace where we are in the present.

Understanding our before and after
Often the emotional symptoms that I refer to are related to loss, hurt and change. Such events create a before and after. Before the event we had an identity and after the event we have an identity but they are different. Nostalgia is when we keep looking back to the past, and crave for that past to be our current present. This can never happen. It is this deficit between what was and what is, that is the feelings of loss that lead to these depressive symptoms. For many years nostalgia was seen as an emotional disorder.

Returning to the pain
Nostalgia was coined by Swiss physician Johannes Hoffer in 1688, and for years after that, nostalgia was considered a disorder, according to The New York Times. Hoffer called nostalgia a “neurological disease of essentially demonic cause,” the Times reported. The term comes from the Greek words for “returning” (nostos) and “pain” (algos).

You can see from the above that our looking back is often painful. Either we are reliving painful experiences or feeling the hurtful loss of good experiences. Either which way looking back often leads to feelings of pain in the present hence the tendency for it to create depression.

When we lose people, become divorced, retire or are made redundant, or when we are subject to unwanted change, as in when the workplace undergoes re-organisation, or perhaps we have been the subject of an accident or event that has been life threatening, each can lad to nostalgia “returning to the pain”.

These days we view nostalgia as a warm feeling for a safer and happier past, the good times that were. Yet even in this there can be the seeds of depression. As societies and organisation’s change, often a revolution rather than an evolution, we hanker for the old order that was, to our eyes, so much better than what we have now.

Creating endings
What I am saying is that we tend to fail in our attempts at creating our New Year resolutions because we are held back by our unresolved past. The steps one, two and three, in the Live in the Present book are designed to deal with this and my book, ‘What’s That In Your Attic’ is about cleaning all the rubbish out of your head. On the basis that you can only create effective new beginnings once you have created endings, perhaps you might consider putting your attention to letting go of what was before creating what will be. If you are struggling with unresolved past issues or suffering from the types of psychosomatic symptoms that I have described above you might benefit for some psychotherapy.

And for those of you who are now reaching for your keyboard to tell me that your symptoms are not psychosomatic and that they are a diagnosed disease, condition or syndrome with a name, I am not saying that all illness is psychosomatic, but that the symptoms of your physical illness will be exacerbated by your emotional wellbeing and health or by the lack of it. In letting go of the past you are assisting the natural healing of your body to do its job.

Be happy, let go and move forward.

Sean x