Archive for category: Blog

All around us people enact their power in order to win. It might be that we are at a crowded bar trying to get a drink so that we and a whole group of other people are trying to gain the attention of the bartender to get their order met. Who gets to the til first, gets on the bus first? The general winning in our society is when people play out the very basic human need to survive which I see as the enactment of ‘I, me, my, now, I must have.’ It is the ultimate selfishness which goes 100% against my mantra of 

‘if we all look after each other we will all be okay’.

Ed was referring to a player at Wimbledon this year who was using bullying power tactics to win in being difficult with his opponent and the umpire. The crowd got angry with him that seemed to give him more energy to get even more empowered. He had got a response. A lot of the use of power between is to create a response that will lead to someone winning. Sadly I see it in relationships a lot. One person exercises power over the other in what becomes domination. It might be physical, sexual, financial, social and so on. It also happens in the workplace in both the public and the private sectors where people will exercise their power to get up the greasy pole of promotion and increased salary. And, of course, we see it in politics where power is often…

‘it is not what you know it is who you know’

The need to win and the exercise of power is everywhere. When I was travelling in the hippy days traveller would gather together in evening camps each had been to different ashrams and attended the courses of particular teachers or gurus. Even in that setting the need to win came to the fore in the form of…

…’my guru is better that your guru’…

I love it when there is a race, maybe a marathon, and someone collapses before they cross the finish line and the other runners stop help them up and help them across the line so that they too can finish all together. This is not power, win or lose, it is that when we look after each other. It is then that we are all winners.

Sadly our leaders and politicians do not promote the cooperation between people they support conflict, argument and domination. When we look at the trolls on social media we see the same domination, power and the attempt to win over another person. 

The way that his changes is when we begin to see other people as ourself and treat others as we would like to be treated. Then when we win we all win and their are no losers. This may sound idealistic but it is the world of spiritual and social equality. 

When we look after each other we are all winners and their are no losers

Take care. 

Sean x

I have been watching the Jubilee celebrations and it struck me how many people when interviewed described the Queen’s kindness. Many where describing how they had used her example as a way they had gone on to act in their own lives. They made me think about our relationships between our leaders and our own behaviour. If we follow the like of Putin does that mean that we learn that it is okay to just go and violently take whatever we want from who ever we want? Or if we have a leader like Gandhi do we learn that with love and tolerance we can win the argument?

Think of the leaders that children are influenced by. Obviously we have parents and siblings, teachers and friends and their families. Politicians and social or celebrity icons. What are these leadership figures teaching us. Only you can decide what the lasting lessons of Boris Johnson will be on the generation who are growing up under his leadership. The Queen’s model of leadership could be seen as very different to his yet she id probably a very remote figure for our media hungry youth where celebrity had so much status. How often do we see kindness.

Kindness is a fundamental aspect of all successful human communications and relationships. In many ways we can’t talk about kindness enough. You would expect me to say this because I always do…

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

We all have such great potential for love, care and kindness if we just stop long enough to listen and respond appropriately.

A couple of weeks ago Ed and I went to Amsterdam to attend a conference and exhibition. While the event was completely amazing there was something else that was in the air and in water in Amsterdam. It was in the looks of the people as they went about their daily lives. It has really stuck with me. It was so powerful. It was kindness. There we were in a community of people who were concerned with ensuring that each other were okay. It felt so good.

Scientific evidence shows us the positive effects of doing kind acts for others, as well as receiving or even witnessing kindness, has upon our brain and our emotional chemistry. Neuropsychology measures the increase of the positive endorphins in the brain that enhance our sense of wellbeing. Even the smallest act of kindness can change a life and being the one doing it can change your life aswell.

Each year kindness week and a kindness day. This year it was in mid February. I am using https://www.twinkl.co.uk/event/international-random-acts-of-kindness-week-2022, as my resource for this week’s podcast. However, I am left wondering why we can’t have a loving kindness year or even a loving kindness life. Back to my mantra…

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

The concept of sharing loving kindness is common in most schools of meditation, known as Metta. Metta or as loving kindness meditation that often comes at the end of normal meditation practice, though it can used as a full meditation of loving kindness. In Metta we are expressing caring and empathy for others and even all sentient, feeling and beings. Traditionally this begins with yourself and then, like ripples from a pond, it spreads in ever increasing circles to encompass all of creation.

In this blog I am partly quoting from Bodhipaksa who is a Buddhist practitioner and teacher, and founder of Wildmind in 2001. Well worth a visit http://www.wildmind.org/metta/introduction/what-is-metta

In the current time we need to be building positive emotional connections with all those around us. For many meditators Metta is not limited to meditation practice but is a way of life.

Metta is recognising that all sentient beings (including all animals) can feel good or feel bad, and that all, given the choice, will choose the former over the latter. Such contact with feeling implies that there can be suffering for all beings. This is the point where I became a vegetarian. The bottom line for me is that other animals do not have to die in order for me to live and that other animals do not need to suffer so that I can live.

Metta is the solidarity that we have with others, this sharing of a common aspiration to find fulfilment and escape suffering. At this time, dealing with Covid and the aftermath of Covid, we can choose to help others and they choose to help us we could reclaim community. The way that I see it is that if we all work together we can achieve anything.

Metta is empathy which is the willingness to see the world from another’s point of view: to walk a mile in their shoes. When we are consciously awake and are aware and switched on we can learn from the experience of other people. When we are consciously asleep and switched off we often have to suffer individually in order to learn and grow.

Metta is the desire that all sentient beings be well and are doing well, or at least the ones we’re currently thinking about or in contact with. It’s wishing others well. When we look after others the chances are that they will look after us and wish us well. Creating the positive and peaceful family of community. This takes me back to that feeling in Amsterdam.

Metta is friendliness, consideration, kindness, generosity. Charity is when we offer friendliness and support to others. It may be money though the most charitable thing that we can do is to be there for other people when they need us.

Metta is an attitude to action rather than just a nice feeling. It’s an attitude of friendliness but friendliness in action.

Metta is compassion. Compassion means ‘with feeling’. When our loving kindness meets another’s suffering, then our Metta transforms into compassion and we feel and respond to their needs.

Metta is shared joy. When our Metta meets with another’s happiness or good fortune, then it transmutes into an empathetic joyfulness. We feel better and more joyful from having made that compassionate connection with another person.

Metta knows no bounds. We can feel Metta for any sentient being, regardless of gender, race, nationality species, ethnicity, orientation. When trained in psychotherapy we are encouraged to treat all those people that we work with, with unconditional positive regard. We also need to treat ourselves in the same way with unconditional positive self regard.

Metta is the most fulfilling emotional state that we can know. It’s the fulfilment of the emotional development of every being. It’s our inherent potential. To wish another well is to wish that they also be in a state of experiencing Metta.

Metta is the answer to almost every problem the world faces today. Money won’t do it. Technology won’t do it. Metta will.

That last point is so simple, yet is is so true. All the world problems could be solved right now with a little loving kindness. Too often politics and the media go out of their way to reinforce the differences between people. Metta shows how similar we all are, and not just human beings all animals, all of creation.

Have a go at the meditation of loving kindness on the Palouse site and enjoy the other great links, knowledge and facilities offered there.

Here is a link to a full metta loving kindness meditation…
https://palousemindfulness.com/meditations/lovingkindness.html

Be happy and share your Metta

Take care

Sean x

I was working with someone this week who told me that we should do a podcast on humour…”for Gods sake why is everyone so miserable?”

There is a time in the madness of the world when I guess all that you can do is laugh. At this time it can be easy to feel that there is nothing good happening in the world. We have covid and the ongoing effects of covid, real wars and not just rumours of wars, the ongoing effects of Brexit, the ongoing antics of Trump and the ego stretching of Putin, what seems to be a collapsing NHS and Boris in number 10. This has to be the time to make a joke and have a laugh I think.

When did you last have a belly laugh?

Humour

This is a natural human emotion that is shared by all peoples in all parts of the world. Humour if often and emotional release typified by the fact that as a response to laughter our brain secretes happy hormones that will make us feel good. In many situations humour has a stress management function which allows for the release of tension. In some areas that are particularly stressful such as operating theatres, accident and emergency departments and ambulance or police response teams the humour may become very dark. If this humour is heard by people outside of the ‘group’ it may well be experienced as offensive, yet it’s function for those within the group is vital, it enables them to function.

Laughter as therapy

Laughter is therapeutic it can make the intolerable tolerable and it can defuse the unjustifiable. When we are mindful we live in the moment, in the present, not allowing ourselves to be distracted by the depressive past or the anxious future. When we laugh we laugh in the moment not the past and not the future. To laugh is to be mindful and to laugh with others is joyful.

Laughter may be the best medicine

Laughter will reduce the levels of stress hormone in our body. It enhances and increases the immune cells and the immune response, developing powerful infection fighting antibodies. It improves our resistance to disease and stress related illness. Laughter also has a direct effect on the brain as it releases more endorphins that increase our sense of happiness and wellbeing. These endorphins can also have an effect our experience of pain and lessen its effect. Laughter is a very powerful medicine.

 

Stress reduction

Sigmund Freud, the father of Psychoanalysis, described humour as a release of tension and psychic energy. This would suggest that we can laugh at, or find funny, what is going on in our head and not necessarily what is going on around us. We might see someone simply walking down the street and laughing at something going on in their head. When I worked in psychiatry I would often see a patient chuckling away in the corner and just letting it out, managing their stress.

Infectious laughter

Laughter workshops are weird. You arrive not feeling at all funny. You might even be feeling a bit miserable. You meet a group of people, complete strangers and the course leader begins to laugh. At first it seem ridiculous. Then you have a go. Just a little laugh. Suddenly you are off laughing so that the tears are rolling down your face. Not sure what you are laughing at or why you are laughing. Just to look into the eyes of a fellow participant who is laughing is enough to set you off again. Laughter is infectious.

The comedy club

It can be the same when you go to a comedy show. In research, if the blood of people entering the show is taken and the levels of stress hormone and happy hormone measured and recorded and then same is done when they leave we find that after the show peoples stress hormone and decreased and the happy hormones have increased.

In her book ‘The Secret’ Rhonda Byrne describes a lady who was given a terminal diagnosis. She went home and watched every video that she could that would make her laugh. She claims that she laughed her way back to full health. I am unsure or the veracity  of this claim though I am sure it would have improved her chances of survival and recovery.

Humour in unexpected places

Some of the funniest times I have had have been in hospices, often with people who were dying. In these situations humour and laughter is a tremendous stress reliever. I have also been at a funeral when a relative became hysterical with laughter which was infectious to some but greatly offensive to others. She was simply relieving her stress in that situation. And humour shared in a disaster situation has often saved the day. Once we see that laughter and tears are both ways of dealing with stress and releasing tension it can make a bit more sense.

Finally, laughter is a good thing and we should do more of it. To be able to laugh, lovingly, at yourself and your fellow human beings is a gift. However in your humour be kind and  mindful and try not to offend others. 

Take care and be happy and keep laughing

Sean x

With covid, food banks and the Ukrainian war the concept of generosity and giving comes, for many of us, clearly into focus. Often we feel helpless in the face of all the trauma and the need to give something can ease our emotional burden and make us feel better.

When I talk to people about generosity and giving the first thing that comes into their mind tends to be money. There are many levels of generosity that I will come to later but let’s begin with the idea of money and stuff. Most selfishness, xenophobia and meanness is about our inability to share money, possessions, food and things.

Now, many psychologists tell me that the drive for selfish hoarding is a natural selection trait that developed in the evolution of our social psychology to ensure individual and group survival and the survival of our genes in the gene pool, ‘the selfish gene’ and all that. I can see that, and I see how we as groups developed socially to create alpha males and alpha females right through to the entire inequality of social structure that now dominates all human interactions today. The only thing is that I really don’t buy it, I don’t believe it, I don’t believe that this is simply the way that it is.

Equality in action.
When I look at the remaining hunter gatherers on the planet, who are the nearest that we can get our ancestors, I see an equality that does not exist in the agricultural, urban and industrial societies of today. For hunter gatherers everything is shared. It is a case of we own this not I own this. When a hunter from the group catches an animal to eat it does not belong to the hunter alone it is shared equally by the group. The sense of my and mine is superseded by the collective need of we and ours.

Can you imagine a world where we shared our food so that no one went hungry. We shared our resources and technology so that everyone had a place to live, where they were warm and safe?

Generosity requires that we examine our current concepts of ownership and perhaps make some adjustments for the good of us all. My fear is that if we do not we will begin to see the decline of humanity.

So what about other ares of generosity?

Physical generosity
To hold a door open, help someone on or off a bus, to help someone across the road, cut their grass, to go out of your way to help them ‘do’ something is an act of physical generosity.

Social generosity
To check that another person is okay, that they have a dinner at Christmas, that they are not alone or lonely, to run them to the hospital, look after their kids, pick them up when they fall down are acts of social generosity.

Experiential generosity
To run scout clubs, take the poorly to Lourdes, to go on treks to the Himalayas and help in schools, to raise money in mad ways for comic relief and Pudsey Bear, cook meals for the homeless and help in the homeless shelter on Christmas Day, to run a News Paper that only tells good news are all forms of experiential generosity.

Financial generosity
To give 10% of your net income to the poor and needy, to support children in foreign countries, to give money national and international appeals are all forms of financial generosity.

Responsible generosity
To sit on committees, become a councillor, to be a school governor, to be an advocate, to help out in the local CAB, to volunteer to help adults to learn to read and write, to set up protest groups against planning applications, to fight for the rights or those killed at Hillsboro are all forms of responsible generosity.

Spiritual generosity
It may not feel like but when you open the door to someone who wants to save your soul by you following their faith it is their act of spiritual generosity. To act Dharmically, to always do the right thing, and to do your best in every situation, to consciously not hurt or damage other people and if you do then doing your best to repair any damage, to try’s and get the best for all are acts of spiritual generosity.

To have an open heart, sharing love and care, do what you can to help and assist others in whatever way is necessary and appropriate is generosity.

One last thing. To be able to accept the generosity of others requires that you have a generosity towards yourself. Charity begins at home we cannot accept the help and generosity from other if we do not value ourself, we need to worthy and worth it. First love yourself, then love others.

Getting beyond the issues of today will take a lot of generosity and love.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

Well, I have got Covid 19 for the second time. This has meant that I have needed to cancel a lot of this week and will have lots to catch up on next week. The one thing that Covid does give is time to think. Everywhere I am looking I am seeing the expanding crisis with Putin in Ukraine. As I look across the world it all seems so much like an action replay of the 1930s prior to the Second World War.

This is a tough blog and very much embedded in our time and the very things that are happening around us. Across the world there is political lurch to the right that, in many cases, is becoming fascistic. The last world war happened because, at that time, the fascist, totalitarian, dictators in Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan and eventually Russia all came out to play. The war lasted six years and encompassed the world. The estimates vary between a death toll of 60 to 80 million people during the war, including the 6 million in the holocaust. 

Are we about to do it again? And, if we are why?

We have a very human problem and it is the lack of awareness or lack of awareness in the vast majority of people. This allows for headless chicken syndrome where short term objectives override the longterm effects of our decisions. I have worked for many years with thousands of people and my work would suggest that what I was taught in my Ayurvedic training about human awareness, when I was a novice, is true. This understanding was as follows. The awareness pyramid shows an ascending scale of awareness the world’s population. The percentages are arbitrary but I think you will get the point. 

Deep asleep – about 50% of the population

In the darkest state, the human consciousness is only aware of its limited self, only aware of the importance of the individual ego. Here it is too dark to see anything or anyone else, this is isolated aloneness. Therefore the deep asleep person treats everyone and everything around them with total insensitivity, oblivious to the damage that they are causing, they simply cannot see it or feel it and do not understand. It is only when things become lighter and brighter that we begin to see what is around us. In the darkness, we are all blind and alone.

If as I suggest that half of all humanity are deep asleep then levels of social and political awareness will be low and the decision made only have a chance of serving us well.

Dream sleep – about 20% of the population

In this stage level of awareness is the realisation that there is strength in numbers the individual realises the benefits of co-operation with other individuals. This may be the simple realisation that sleeping with another person is warmer than sleeping alone. Or there may be a benefit from mutual security and support or help with hunting bigger animals and so on. The problem is that once we have group based on common interest we have those inside the group and those outside the group. We have ‘us’ and ‘them’ and all the prejudice and bigotry that comes with not, not understanding or being fearful of ‘them’.This is what is currently playing out with the migrant issues across Europe and the USA and the fears other religions.

The Waking State – about 12% of the population

In this state people want to be different, they no longer want to comply with the norms of the group they have new ways of looking at things that threaten the group rules. When we close down and confine our support to only those of our group, say on the immigration issue, it is these people in the waking state that question and fight for the rights of those not in ‘our’ group. But these people are not yet truly awake and their demands may be made in ignorance and be unrealistic. It only when human consciousness awakes that we see the ability to make things difference because the currency of awareness is power.

Awake-ness – about 8% of the population

Power is often seen as a dirty word. In reality those that are awake exercise power over those that remain asleep. the asleep people are referred to in politics as ‘the silent majority’. The sleeping people hold the ability to dictate the outcomes in human evolution but they do not realise it so those that have the power manipulate them to achieve desired outcomes.

Power is like a knife, it is neutral. A knife can be used to create a work of art, a wonderful meal or death and destruction. The knife is neutral. It is the holder of the knife who dictates what it will do. It is exactly the same with power. Often, money or influence and power go together. In the case of politics it is power, influence and money that get people elected. 

It is easier for a rich person to wreck the world 

than it is…

For a poor person to become president

People that use power negatively use those that are asleep as the cannon fodder in the market place and in wars.

Objective Consciousness – about 5% of the population

Those that can see the effects of the power brokers can see things objectively and will work to control a restrain the unfettered use of power. These may be parents attempting to moderate the behaviours of their adolescent children or it may be people trying to encourage us to be different with transport and pollution.

Objectivity is often parliament and rules often the only control that can have an effect on the excesses of power, However, sometime objectivity can easily become a set of rules and dogma that become fixed and immutable laws that do not bend this is when “the law is an ass’.

Intuitive Consciousness – about 3% of the population

This level of awareness is above thought and above word. The currency of intuition is meaning. This is direct knowledge without knowing. Those that have a deep intuitive function have long sight that realises outcomes that those who are less awake fail to see. Those that are in deep sleep see everything in terms of the immediate effect. Those in intuitive consciousness do not focus the effect of things today, next month or next year, they are seeing ten, twenty and hundred year ahead. Often these people are described and Indigo or empathic.

Creative Consciousness – about 2% of the population

The currency of creativity is in images. Advertisers spend their lives attempting to manipulate those in asleep-ness to buy into ever changing images of what they are now told that they definitely need. But this is at a low level of awareness the truly creative image makers give humanity inspirational images that last for decades or entire eras. The images shared but Moses, Jesus, Krishna, Buddha and Mohamed have inspired millions of people and many hundred of years after the events their teachings are still active and alive.

Negative creativity

There is also a negative side of imaginative inspiration. Hitler’s managed to persuade hundreds of thousands of people to go around the world, to kill and to die, all for this cause that he managed to inspire other people to enact. We see a similar thing going on with Putins war. 

At all levels of consciousness we have a choice to act positively or negatively.

Current Social Cycle

The goodwill and drive for cooperation that developed after the Second World War is now coming to a close. Right wing xenophobia is in the ascendant. It is happening at all levels in all countries and in most cases it is being driven by fear. The fear that is felt by the majority who are, in my estimation, are asleep. I suspect that we are collectively blundering into future crisis that is not yet in focus. Hopefully not a Third World War.

I say these things from my position of working with people…

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

My concern is that we blunder into another global war and turn the cycle again before we return to a more caring and sharing world order.

The world could be, and often is, such and wonderful place. Why do we choose to create conflict and pain?

Take care

Sean x