Happy New Year it’s 2023

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Ok, so it is New Year!  

Standing here at the beginning of 2023 you, and I, will now be making choices about how and what this year will be. 2022 was certainly be a year to remember and for many perhaps a year to forget. From Covid, through the Ukrainian war, cost of livening crisis and the NHS backlogs and various strikes, it has been on hell of a year. 

For me there was the added issues my endocarditis and open heart surgery which was a near death experience that effected both me and my darling wife, Rie.

As we ride on into 2023 we continue the joint joys of Covid and subsequent infections, ongoing War, financial crisis and inflation and we still Brexit issues that are not yet resolved. Looking forward into 2023 will create feelings of hope, love, fear, anxiety, joy…whatever it is for you. The point is that what you see ahead, and how you see it will create your experience of 2023…

 … you create what happens for you … 

… is all a matter of your choices. it may not feel like it but your world is full of choice. In your present moment in your ‘Now’ you are actively creating the world of your experience through the choices that you make…  

…thoughts becomes things…

…all of us, individually and collectively, are choosing what will happen for us in 2023 and how we will respond to it and feel ab out it. We are all doing it though we may not realise it. One thing that I learned in 2022 has been…

…we don’t have problems, we have learning opportunities.

Focus for a moment on the choices before you in this coming year. Do you have any? What are they? Most importantly what is the basis of your choices? When deciding what to do, or what not to do, something It is important to own that deciding not to make a decision is actually a decision. The action of stillness is equally as powerful as the action of motion. However, when you choose to do nothing you are likely to be vulnerable to the choices that everyone else makes around you. In having your own clarity of purpose you are in the flow of your life and, as I said, stillness is a decision as much as an action.

Choice and fear

For many of us the choice for action this year will be limited by fear. Fear of disease, debt, pain, failure, fear itself, the fear of looking stupid, ridiculed, of loss, rejection, abandonment and so on. Fear is the biggest limiting factor for any of us. Fear and anxiety are the destroyers of our happiness and to create fulfilment 

  • those who dare win
  • We all need to step beyond our fears, as Susan Jeffers put it 
  • – feel the fear and do it anyway – 
  • This is a book worth reading.

If you can get hold of that idea that your thoughts become your experience, you are becoming the author of your own life. It is then you will realise that fear is actually a choice. Once you understand that you will realise that the experience of joy is the same thing. Personal joy and duty are often at odds. 

Do you do what you want to do or what you think you should or ought to do?

Choice and duty

Generally in psychotherapy the words “ought, should, must and can’t” are banned. Each of these words are limiters of self expression. The call for duty may be laid upon us by our culture, religion, beliefs, as parents, children, employees, employers and so on. The trick is that if in 2023 there are things that you feel you ‘must’ do then… 

…act with a smile on your face.

This is known as Bhakti or, to give service without expecting anything in return. We all need a bit of Bhakti in our lives but it is always damaging when we allow a sense of duty to stunt our own self development after all… 

…we all deserve happiness

Well we all do in my life script. Yet many of us chose to create negative life scripts.

There are many reason that we can find to maintain and justify our own lack of development or fulfilment our feelings of victimisation or misery, unhappiness and moaning about our life and other people that we meet, though there are alternatives. The classic is that we blame other people for how we feel. Common targets are our parents, family, friends, and most commonly partners and so on.

There are alternatives…

Choice and joy

In making your decisions for 2023 you might chose to avoid the ought, should, must and can’t and, think about the lightness of joy in life… 

…focus on what makes you feel happy…

and do more of it. Doing things that make you feel good is never a difficulty and it never feels like work. When you do things that make you feel good, in the end it is you that feels happiness. How many of the things that you do in your life lead to you feeling flat, bored or unhappy. If you do more of what makes you feel good in your life you will feel happier and get better and better…

…happiness is a learned response… 

…sometime we have to practise the art of being happy.

Choice and responsibility

The word responsibility comes from the word to respond “respond-ability”. Being responsible or “respond-able” for what you experience makes you the master of our own destiny. It does not matter from where you begin your journey, whatever your age or state of health. By being responsible for your life and taking ownership of yourself – responsibility is the key-. If I decide to be responsible for myself no one else can ever be responsible for what I think or feel and, ultimately, what I do. There are many examples of people who, against the odds, chose to respond to things positively.

This year some of you will be facing very difficult and tough stuff, emotionally, mentally, financially, physically, socially and so on. These may be things that you cannot avoid and you have no choice other than to face them and deal with them. However, you do have a choice as to how you respond to them…

 …none of us are effected by events, 

we are only effected by our response to those events…

…living in the present and being positive about your future allows you to create the year in 2023 that you will look back on positively and perhaps with joy. Decide to create your own experience this year. Treat your problems as challenges so whatever 2023 presents you with, smile at it and be positive and, most of all, enjoy it.

Take care and happy New Year

Sean x

Another Happy Christmas?

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And, here we are again! The season of goodwill is upon us. Why do we need to wait for Christmas to offer our fellow human beings goodwill? What is the matter with 364 other days of the years that you don’t offer goodwill then? It gives a lot of meaning to the song “I wish it could be Christmas everyday”.

A friend of mine will hold his mother’s funeral on the 23rd. The idea of saying have a happy Christmas seems completely wrong. For so many people Christmas is not a good time. It is a time when people revisit losses and bereavements. Some will be completely alone with not even a Christmas dinner to enjoy and there will be many in the cold on the street with nowhere to be.

Giving

Christmas should, for me, be a time of giving. I see the over consumerism that we have developed leading to demands and critical disappointments. We cease to see the love behind the gift and only the gift itself.

But, how is it for you?

Happy time

Is it that Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus? Or is it that you recognise the winter solstice and acknowledge the end of the darkness and the change to shorter nights and longer day as the light increases. Is it that you simply see this as time of sharing, perhaps with family and friends. A time of warmth and social connection. Is it that you see this as a time when you get wonderful presents and maybe that you also give wonderful presents, a time of giving and receiving.

Not so good a time

Perhaps this is not such a good time. It might be the first Christmas without someone. Maybe it reminds you of of bad times in the past or negative childhood memories. Some people just want to be on their own at Christmas and get accused of being miserable if they are.

A really bad time

Someone who is homeless is unlikely to be reading this and maybe having the worst time of their lives. There are children in war zones such as the Ukraine, old people living alone, the poor, deprived and the needy. For people who are terminal or coming to the end of their life Christmas might no be a very good time at all. Children in hospitals. Families with nothing or very little money.

Dark depression and suicide

At this time of year there is often an increase in suicide or suicide attempts.

For many people this is not the most wonderful time of the year

Getting the best that you can from Christmas

Whatever Christmas means for you, and whatever your stating point, what is the very best that you can get from it?

All the evidence would point to the physiological and psychological benefits that come from the act of giving. Giving may be to those that are immediately around you. It may be that you are able to contribute in some way to those around you that have so much less. Who in your street or vicinity is living alone and may really appreciate a Christmas dinner, a visit or a little present. It may be too much for you to invite people into your home but you can contribute to the homeless and those that have nothing with food, money, presents or time. If people are coming to you or you have a family to cater for creating a loving and welcome ambiance is a real act of love at this time. 

If you have nothing material to give you always have love and time. The most precious gifts of all.

What about you?

It is important when you look at the ideas of giving and loving this Christmas to look after yourself as well. What are you going to give yourself this Christmas? What are you doing for you this Christmas? The phrase ‘Charity begins at home’ starts with you. None of us can look after other people, whoever they are, if we do not look after ourselves first. 

Time to consider what you want and what you need this Christmas as well as what everyone else wants and what everybody else needs.

Be happy and enjoy it

Take care

Sean 

Empty Nests

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Each year families, especially mothers, go through the issue of letting go of their children as they go off to university or to work and each year I get people coming to talk about it and make sense of their changing role. Coping with the effects of children leaving the home going off to university or off to work or even a new relationship means that the role of the parent is changed forever. 

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

The rites of passage

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

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

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

Who contacts who?

How often do I phone, text, skype?

Do I wait for them to contact me?

Do I offer the money, resources or wait until I am asked?

What do I do with their room?

Do I keep it as a shrine, redecorate it, let’s other people stay in it….?

What about the family dynamic?

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

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

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

Using money

Knowing how to budget and pay bills

Making a shopping list

Basic cookery skills

How to use a washing machine 

The art of ironing

The rules of engagement

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

So who are you now?

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

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

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

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

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

Take care and be happy

Sean x

Staying Mindfully Calm Under Pressure

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It always seems amazing when a dramatic situation develops somewhere in the world and, what seems to be, the whole of humanity come together in a spirit of good will with the desire to get something right. Do you remember when the Wild Boars football team became trapped in a cave system alongside their coach. Luckily the coach was an ex Buddhist monk, of ten years standing, who taught the team to be mindful, meditate and await a rescue that non of them knew would come.

In the ‘Intention Experiment’ quantum physicists tell us that it is now possible to measure energy leaving one person and measure it arriving at another person. You might call this energy good will, love, prayer, absent healing and so on but I suspect that a lot of positive energy was raining down on these guys in the cave and, amazingly, they all got out. Though we do have to offer our prayers and thanks to the Thai Navy Seal, and his family, who lost his own life in helping those trapped children.

The fact that the coach was trained in Mindfulness and meditation was probably the deciding factor in their survival. That had a limited oxygen supply and they were on the edge on hypoxia when they finally got out. In calmness the respiration would have been slower and they would have used less of their vital resource of oxygen. When people are anxious they breath shallow and fast.

Considering that all beings on planet Earth can count their breaths in an average life time at around 700 million breaths each breath has a value that should not be wasted. This amount of breaths is as true for an elephant as for a mouse. Mice have short fast breaths and get through their allotted amount much quicker than an elephant who has deep slow breaths. Those of us who are anxious and suffer from a raised heart rate and a raised respiration will die sooner than those of us who are calmer with a slower heart and respiration rate.

Unless we learn to be mindful and observe our breath we will never be truly aware of what is going on in or system. Using mindfulness, relaxation, exercise and meditation we can slow both our heart rate and respiration and increase our chances of living a longer and happier life.

Being in your own cave
The cave metaphor is often used to describe that inner space that we all retreat to when we are under threat. We would say that a man goes to his man cave, well so do women but in a different way to men.
Sometimes when life feels like it is too much the only place we can go is within. Our computer inboxes maybe full to bursting, our emotional inbox may be full to bursting and our mental inbox likewise. Our systems are in overload, colleagues and family are now too much, and all too often deliverables seem, well, undeliverable.
However hard we work hard, we don’t always meet our goals for the day or the week or the month. New urgent tasks come to us before old ones are done. Sometimes we react by behaving badly, or perhaps we agree to everything, even knowing that we cannot do it all, and the pressure builds inside us. Sometimes we blame ourselves for not being good enough, or our colleagues, family and friends, and we forget we are all in this thing called life together.
Could this be positive?
Seen another way pressure could just be a positive force; it can help us to be better at our jobs, relationships and lives. Pressure can motivate us to be a better person. It can trigger incredible creativity, and boost our productivity. The trick is to mindfully manage what we are thinking, feeling and doing. We need to re-examine how we deal with it, and we can be there for each other. In mindfulness we are gathering tools that work best for each and all of us.
If we all look after each other we will all be okay
There are massive changes coming to the Uk with the war in Ukraine and the financial crisis. The whole world is changes in the focus of economic power and global warming. There is a great deal to do, especially in the coming months. However, if we are mindful of the responsibility we have for ourselves, and if we support each other, we will, in the end, all be alright.
The basic premise of mindfulness is that being present with what is happening now, in this moment, stops us from ruminating about the past or future, and brings about clarity and focus. This does not mean that we deliberately allow ourselves to stay focused on how overwhelmed we feel at this moment. In fact, by stopping the flow of ruminating thoughts and being mindful, we are able to change the way we experience what is going on right now in the moment, and turn the negative aspects of pressure into the positive ones.
We don’t have problems we have learning opportunities
When we feel pressured, for example, if we are working under a tight deadline at work or at home, our concern can become the belief that we won’t meet the deadline, that we will fail and because we believe we can’t, we don’t.
Thoughts become things.
Rumination and disbelief is the way that thoughts become things.
However, we have a choice. Rather than reacting to a feeling of being under pressure by assuring ourselves of our failure, we can for a second or two, notice ourselves breathing in and out, and give ourselves a moment to observe what is really going on. This way we are able to change our reaction, which is mindless, into a thoughtful response, which is mindful.
Stop. Breathe. Respond.
Observe the pressure; don’t become it
Having a positive self-perception is a key component in transforming our ability to manage pressure. This is called self compassion. We need to like ourselves and to know we are worthy as human beings. However, we should also have compassion for others. One person should never think that they are better than another person. It is only when we can recognise the positive aspects of ourselves that we are then able recognise them also in others.
Reflecting on the football team in the cave, it is when we find ourselves in a negative internal cave, in the darkness and unable to see the light, that we need to remain calm, relax, meditate and await our own rescue. In this case it is the rescue that comes from mindful practices and the insight that allows the light to penetrate our darkness. So often that light will be self compassion.

Take care, be happy and be calm

Sean x

Donor or not?

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Somebody reminded me this week that we had previously done a podcast and blog in which I stated tat as a vegetarian that I would never accept a body donation from a pig and yet twelve weeks ago which undergoing heart surgery I agreed to have a pigs valve fitted in my heart. At the time of the operation I decided that’s I would accept the valve as I had just had three units of blood in transfusions. In my meditation I came to the conclusion that in creation life lives off life and I accepted that if I was to live it would be as a result of the donation from the pig.

Below I have copied the original blog fro the previous podcast. I would be interpreted in your thoughts and comments.   

This weeks podcast and blog has been inspired a listener who directed me to an article about a little girl who had died. They pointed out how many people she helped to live by the donation of her organs. This was a hot and difficult topic for the listener as they are now in a similar situation where a relative close to them will shortly die. Their family are currently discussing the rightness or wrongness of donating organs. Their discussion also raised the issue of the rights of the family versus the donor. Should the family have a say in someone’s decision to become an organ donor.  They suggested that Ed and I do a podcast to look at these difficult issue. I started asking people, checking some services and ideas online. The first issue seems to be is it right or wrong?

So, is it right to give part of your body to another person? Some people who become donors donate their body once they are dead while others do so while they are still alive giving away a kidney, bone marrow, eggs and semen, blood and so on. The whole issues raises so many questions. The main one being just because we can do something should we?

Would you be a recipient?

Ok, so would you accept an organ from a donor? Would you accept a blood transfusion?

As a lot of these issues are so personal I have put in quite a few links, some to people who have actually had the transplants described. The issues of both accepting and giving body parts hits at the very core of what do we believe, issues of morality and what is right and wrong.

Would you donate?

Would you give an organ? Do you carry a donor card?   Sixty two percent of people in Britain do carry a card, while only 4% of us are prepared to give blood? And each year hundreds of people donate their entire body to anatomical and medical science.

It would seem that donating your very skin and bones is the ultimate act of altruism. For many the feeling is that once you are dead you no longer need them and the may as well be recycled. For others a desecration of someone’s remains is the ultimate act of disrespect. 

I have worked with people who have waiting a very long time for a suitable donor and some who have died while waiting due the lack of suitable donors. I also know someone who chose to donate a kidney to a complete stranger on the basis that they had two and only needed one. they literally just put themselves on the register and eventually a suitable recipient came along.

I have also worked with both heart and liver recipients of transplants who despite their gratitude to the donor experience the development of odd behaviours, habits and cravings, as though the organ brought a certain amount or memory with it. Not all donations are easily received. 

Man who rejected donor hands

Even those that do receive an organ or as in the link below a pair of hands are unable to accept and accommodate the gift. This man decided that he would rather have them removed.  

http://time.com/4419959/double-hand-transplant-surgery/

Face transplants

It may equally be true of the recipients of another persons face. In this link the man has had an astounding reconstruction. I look in the mirror now and find that the effects of age have changed the person who is looking back leaving me with the question ‘who are you?’ Am interesting and education journey.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/mar/28/face-transplants-history

Blood transfusions

In the Christian faith Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the Bible says taking blood is wrong and would not accept blood transfusions. Therefore, they would not donate. They also keep their own blood for future transfusion. Many non-Christians would concur and refuse to give or receive blood. For me I am happy to both give a receive blood.

Animal organs – pigs

This a big one. Is it right to create an animal that has been engineered so that its body parts would be acceptable to the human body? Does this raise the issues of animal rights? I guess that if you are happy to eat meat then organs are a byproduct of the same process. For me, as vegetarian, the idea of breeding an animal to harvest it’s organs in outrageous. But is is a personal issue.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/future-animal-to-human-organ-transplants-180956402/

Faecal transplants

This is a very interesting area of research. With the development of neuropsychology the relationship the gut and our brains and between the gut and our emotional self is being investigated. It seems that we can say ‘happy gut happy brain’. We know that many medications, including antibiotics rip the natural flora out of the gut. This can have many consequences including emotional issues such as depression. Current experiments where faecal matter from people with a health gut/brain is transplanted into those lacking in appropriate flora is showing good results. Have a look at the link below it might open your eyes to the possibilities. How would you feel about having someone else’s faecal matter transferred into your gut?

http://taymount.com/faecal-microbiota-transplantation-fmt

Donor eggs and sperm

IVF and fertility clinics would not normally be associated with ideas of donation but that is exactly what they are. Even if the couple involved are known to each other and the IVF follows the same route that would have been taken naturally we are still moving bits of one person into another. One thing that concerns me in this area is the idea of designer babies, either to create a certain quality of child or a second child whose blood or umbilical fluids might be used to cure a brother or sister.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/may/14/donor-eggs-pros-cons-conception

https://www.babycenter.com/0_fertility-treatment-gamete-intrafallopian-transfer-gift_4095.bc

Looking this are overall I ask myself again the question ‘just because we can do something should we do it?’ Once we play with the gene pool we are releasing unknown consequences into the future. Lots to thinks about in this podcast and blog.  

Take care and be happy. 

Sean x

Is gossip a good thing?

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Historically when a pregnant lady went for her ‘lying in’ as she was in or coming up to labour she would invite a group of women to accompany her and help her through the experience. The professions of midwife came from this sort of process. However, so did gossip. The women invited to the lying in were known as the gossips. It was one of the few instances when women were able to be alone together without men and could say and discuss whatever they wanted. It was from this that the word gossip moved from the simple title given to the participants to this lying in concept to people sharing things behind someone’s back. The people most effected by this were the men who were excluded from the event and therefore the women were able to talk about them without them knowing. Eventually the word gossip was taken to describe this talking behind someone’s back and was seen by men as an exclusively female thing. If you listen to the podcast you will hear Ed admitting to gossiping with his friends. The reality is that all people, men and women gossip. That is they talk about other people without that person knowing what is being said about them. It is maybe good to mention at this point that gossip, in the sense of what is spoken about someone without their knowledge, behind their back, may not be negative. It could be that people are talking about someone’s good points and their good qualities. 

So why do we gossip? The assumption by evolutionary psychology is that creating a small gossiping group was a way of bonding the group together. The gossip would normally concern people outside of this small group that would be open to criticism. Yet, we can be a part of the group and still be the subject of gossip when we are not there. Have you ever walked into a room and suddenly it goes quiet and the question is ‘what were you all talking about before I came in?’

Is gossip a good thing? Over all I would say yes but with some caveats.

Gossip is a form of stress management. If in the workplace we have a colleague or a manager that is difficult but because of their position we feel unable to challenge their behaviour then gossiping with colleagues can be a form of active stress management that enables us to to off load and deal with the stress and frustration that we are experiencing.  Yes, it would always be better if we could talk to the person directly and give them the feedback about their behaviour, that does give them the opportunity to change. In that sense being honest to someone’s face about their behaviour is feedback and doing it behind their back is gossip. It would seem obvious that the feedback route is the more positive but not always possible in which case the stress management of gossip does have a valid role.

During my current illness and hospitalisation both Rie and I have been the subject of gossip both positive and negative. The problem for those sharing negatively has been that the people that they gossiped to have come back to us and told us what has been shared. This is the one big problem with gossip. It only works as a stress release function when it is kept within the gossiping group. As soon as it leaks out is become destructive and can wreck both relationships and even organisations. 

Social media can be a problem in this regard. We have just seen the ‘Wagatha Christie’ trial all based around who said what on social media. Both in workplaces and in family relationship the cases I am having to deal more and more to do with the damaged relationships caused what people have been saying on social media. 

In a world that has become so immediate it is important that we learn to be more aware of what we are saying and what we are sharing on social media. I would include all forms of trolling and accusations or innuendo in this as well. these can be the start of gossip that is shared and re-shared until it is believed to be the truth and lives can be ruined.

My resource for this podcast is to re-visit the first three steps of the live in the present course and consider how you see yourself and other people and decide if you need to adjust your behaviour. Remember:

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

Take care

Sean x

Family

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Ok, so what is a family? Well, it all begins with the individual as the basic building block. Then we get into sexual mathematics. One individual meet another individual and we have  gone from onto two people and we have a couple. In most cases the sexual mathematic means reproduction and then we have three as baby number one comes along. In modern society  a family is a socio-economic unit that was preferred by the government and the church. In evolution the family unit meant safety. Groups of families became tribes, became communities, became societies, became nationalities. Ultimately they became the factions of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Either you are in or you are outOne of us or one of them.

Now, it would make sense for a family to be a self supporting caring unit where each persons need were met. Sadly this is so often not the case. My own natal family was not a supportive unit it was a snake pit where the individual member sort to dominate and out do the the other members to gain supremacy. I left home at the age of 15 to get away from it. When I left I had no faith in the idea of family that I saw as a destructive thing. I then went on to play out the role models that I had learned as a child and made bad relationships with dysfunctional people who supported my beliefs and understanding of what a family was.

However, over time and a lot of anguish I learned and gradually get better at it as my understanding has grown so that now I live in an amazing extended family who in the main think of each other first and look out for each other’s needs. This is really weird for me to be in a place where you do not have to look over your shoulder to see who is going to stab you in the back.

This has never been more obvious than how they have all responded to my recent stay in hospital for heart surgery when they all piled in to support both me and Rie. It all got me quite emotional to realise that these people lovers me and accepted my as on of them.  I was reminded of when I was 13 or 14 years of age and I had to go to hospital to have a large and manky mole taken out of my back which was suspect CA. It wasn’t that was good. Anyway, I walked three miles or so to the hospital on my own, no one from the family thought that I might need someone with me. When I arrived the surgeon looked at my face that also had a large mole on the chin and said ‘I’ll have that one while I am here as well’. A few hours later with both wounds bandaged I walked the three miles back home again. 

My current experience of family is mind blowing. I recently had ten weeks in hospital and the family were in daily contact, wishing me well, enquiries, food and gifts. What a difference. Back in my childhood home I could have felt abandoned. Though it is true that in extreme emergencies they would gather round and act.

It would seem that in the end I have found my family. Which is great.

I suspect that it is my early childhood experience that led me to…

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

Family is community and community is humanity.

Take care

Sean x 

Power, Win, Lose

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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

Is It Better To Be Polite Or Honest?

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Have you ever heard those words? ‘To be honest….’ Normally they are the precursor to someone saying something bad about something or someone. It could be about you…

‘To be honest (usually a pause) your bum looks huge in that dress’

It could be about how you present yourself…

‘To be honest you were rubbish…’

The phrase ‘to be honest’ is our way of trying, politely, to tell somebody something that we think that they ought to know. It could be that our motive is built good intention. That is because we know that what we about to say may offend or even hurt the other person.

Is it better to be polite and to say what you know, or think you know the other person wants to hear. Or to be honest and say what you actually think or feel?

‘Wow, that dress really shows your bum off. It looks very round in that dress’

To be honest (just used that phrase) I think that in many ways we have all become politically too correct. Often the words that come out of our mouths do not reflect what is going in our head.

I am a big fan of kindness. To be kind to others makes for a happier world. There are times when being polite is not kind. If your bum does look awful in that dress you might actually need to know it so that you can do something about it to make your situation better. But how will you ever know if no one has the honesty to tell you how it is? Politeness can equal dishonesty.

It’s not what you say it is the way that you say it

A diplomat is someone who can address difficult issues honestly without offending he person they are talking to.

It is actually possible to be diplomatic, honest and kind.

Honest feedback is an art form. Most of my life I have run self development courses. They all include feedback sessions from the other group members. ‘The way I experience you is….’ That might feel a it scary is twenty people tell you how they experience you to be. In reality the feedback is a gift.
I am biased about myself, we all are. Life experiences have created my self image. My self image maybe positive or negative. Honest, kind feedback from others challenges my own stereotype and enables me to grow as a person either by accepting things that I deny or developing things that I need.

On the courses I joke that ‘I see myself as six foot bronzed and muscular’. Most people laugh because I am actually five foot six, small and skinny. So then we reach the decision point. Do we act politely and go along with my delusion and all act like I am a hunk. Or does someone explain to me that I am not actually like that and I ten have to face up to something?

When we see politeness and honesty as feedback it is a useful tool for self development. We can then learn. As long as the feedback is done with kindness it is of great help to us. And that is the point.

Politeness is of no use if it is not honest
Honesty is of no use if it is not polite
The thing that puts power into both politeness and honesty is kindness

You could say that honesty with kindness is true politeness.

Take care

Sean x

Leadership and kindness

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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