Sat 28 Aug 2010

Live Your True Life

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Do you ever get the feeling that you are living someone else’s life? Do you ever stop to think that the things you may be doing or thinking are actually someone else’s ideas of how you should be living your life? The feeling may come like a thunderbolt or you might wake up one morning wondering how on earth you got there.

Much of the time when we are growing up, we automatically follow the instructions of the people around us, parents, family, teachers etc. and most of those instructions are on health and safety, keeping order and helping with the smooth running of things. However, as adults, we often end up down a path we don’t want to be because of following others advice. This may be the result of parent’s unfulfilled dreams or a belief about how they think life actually is. As a result, for many of us, life is fuelled by a striking force to survive, which creates a ‘lack’ and ‘struggle’ mentality. And so it goes from generation from generation until someone down the line stops and says, “What happened?”

Even though the view has been outdated scientifically, for a long, long time, many people still view themselves as a separate entity in a dog eat dog world and in order to survive, they must accumulate as many ‘things’ as possible, such as the ego drives. But we end up in this position because society dictates that this is the way to be and we end up being in situations we don’t want to be in, working for things we don’t need. Yet all through your life, you may have little niggles that something is not right for you, niggles that urge you to be still, find some peace and take strength from that part of you that knows exactly the correct path you should be following.

Those niggles should never be ignored because, in fact, you know and you have known all along the path you should be following. You know because inside it makes you feel joyful and blissful. Those niggles are trying to remind you of that. The more you listen and begin to live your life, not someone else’s, the more you begin to feel that you are being gently carried along downstream instead of feeling like you are paddling against river rapids.

Be true to yourself.

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Sat 21 Aug 2010

Staying Centred

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I was talking to a good friend of mine on Skype last weekend and we got round to the subject of ‘life’ getting in the way of what’s important and how we seem to attract the same learning curves over and over that can make us feel like things are spiralling out of control. Some people seem to stay centred and calm during these learning curves and others feel chaos, despair and a whole host of negative emotions. We both agreed that the two things go together, if you don’t spend time each day centring and connecting with what is important to you then you feel that chaos and disconnectedness more and more frequently. When I was younger, I spent too much time in this chaotic feeling, juggling many things at once and worried if things weren’t perfect. I would drive myself crazy trying to control situations (and often people too!) It’s no wonder that I attracted more chaos and when I think back to how ridiculous this was, I’m thankful that I have come a long way.

However, every now and then old habits can resurface if you allow negative thought patterns to dominate. This is why it is so important to have some time every day to centre yourself. For my good friend, it’s doing yoga for an hour or so every morning. Not only does this wake up every part of the body, it has an incredible affect on the mind too. Because of this, she approaches everyday challenges with a calm centre, which then helps her connect with that inner knowingness (that we all have) during the ebb and flow of living. Now this idea of yoga every morning might do nothing for you and that’s because you will have your own things that make you feel more centred. This will come in the form of that which is most important to you (truly). This could be your family, animals or nature. It could be listening to or playing music, spending time on what you feel most passionate about. Make a point of spending 30 minutes – 1 hour less every day on the more trivial things (yes, this probably means work) so that you can focus on what matters most to you.

Staying centred and having that sense of peace or inner satisfaction every day gives you a very different perspective on everything. Life no longer ‘gets in the way’ of the important things, it’s just life and you begin to see the precious nature of it more and more.

“The Great Way is easy yet people prefer the side paths. Be aware when you are out of balance, stay centred within the Tao.” (Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu)

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Sat 14 Aug 2010

De-clutter Your Mind

Posted by thinking under productivity
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When we don’t spend time getting centred on a regular basis, our life can feel a little more out of balance and at worst, really chaotic. When this happens, we tend to attract more and more of this chaos which can come in the form of people or situations. That is when life can feel like it’s spiralling out of control and you don’t have enough time to spend on the things that matter. You may also become ill or unable to do things and this might be your body’s way of slowing you down. If you get to this stage, it’s time to stop and get rid of any unnecessary clutter.

For me, this used to happen once a year and always around the same time, Easter. My back would go completely, rendering me immobile. I literally couldn’t move! I had to stay in the one place until I was able to hobble to the car to get taken to the chiropractor. This was my body’s signal for me to stop and get centred. Over time, when it kept happening again and again, I decided that I had to minimalise what I was doing to focus more on what was really important – not what others expected of me. One thing that I found particularly helpful, as a basis for clearing my mind and renewing my energy, was to minimise and de-clutter my living space.

Now it’s no secret that Chinese culture has held this in such high importance for thousands of years. This minimalisation helps to clear the clutter from your mind and allows you to focus on what is really important. By de-cluttering your living space, Feng Shui tells us that it allows the energy to flow rather than allowing it to get blocked in certain areas of your house or flat (and as a result, your mind and life). Is there an area of your life where everything feels like it’s building up (not in a good way) and you can’t think straight? Does it feel like the energy is blocked and you can’t make a decision? Check your living space for clutter or jobs that need to be done. It doesn’t have to feel like a chore. I always use that time to play music that I love to sing along to or play an audio of an inspirational seminar or book. It clears the mind and allows more energy for the things that matter. I always find that decisions are so much easier to make because the answer often comes to us as we are concentrating on other things. If it still feels like a mammoth task, try to do a little bit every day. You will be amazed at how different you feel and how it allows much more time and renewed energy for the important things.

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Fri 30 Jul 2010

Got a Dream? Let It Go!

Posted by thinking under manifesting
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Some time ago, a good friend of mine became pregnant after years and years of trying. Initially, she was so focused on having a baby that every waking minute was taken up with thinking about it. She would obsess about the best times for fertility, best diet and many different things but more importantly, she would focus intently on why it wasn’t happening. Then, after a good few years, she gave up the obsessing, the focusing and trying too hard. That’s when she became pregnant.

Have you heard a story like this before? It might sound familiar to you because it’s really common, not only with couples trying to conceive but in many other different situations. When you focus on something so intently that it’s all you think about, the focus is on lack and the fact that you don’t have that thing in your life. I have another friend who for years was obsessed with finding ‘Mr Right.’ The desperation was cringe worthy, especially when you heard words like, “1:45, okay, 15 minutes to find a man.” (The nightclub closed at 2am, you see.) Sometimes she did find a man, sometimes she didn’t but he was never good enough to be Mr Right, only Mr Right Now! The sad thing was that she always thought tonight would be the night to meet him and since those she met were always ‘less than perfect,’ she would drive them away with her obsessiveness, only to hook up with someone else the next again week. Then finally, after another disastrous relationship, she took time off work and her endless clubbing to take care of a relative. Not long after this, she met the man she would later marry, in the place that she had been working for the previous 15 years.

So what’s the moral of these 2 very similar stories? Let it go!

When you cling to a dream or hope there is real desperation in that clinging and the focus is on how empty your life is without it. So it is no surprise that we attract this same recurring emptiness if that is all we focus on. Your mind is immersed in the thought that you are incomplete in some way. Wake up to the fact that you are 100% complete as you are, truly know and understand this. Self love and compassion, as I have spoken about previously, is the first step to peace and creating the life you want. By doing this, you are letting it go, whatever it is and when you begin to feel thankful and appreciative for what you have and how you don’t need anything to make your life complete – who knows what may be around the corner.

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Sat 24 Jul 2010

Reclaim Your Time and Energy

Posted by thinking under productivity
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I don’t have to tell you how precious time is.

It is always possible to get more money in some way or another but time, we can’t get back. When I look at my daily life objectively, I know that there are things that I’m spending too much time on unnecessarily and that my energy isn’t always used effectively. However, I do believe that there are ways to claim your energy back and absorb every moment of this precious time, in a way that enables us to truly live.

1. Be present and immerse yourself completely in what you are doing. Too much time is taken up every day on unnecessary worrying and negative thoughts, this drains us of a huge amount of energy. When you are focused on what you are actually doing you conserve your energy and you are actually present in your life. Simple things like focusing on the scenery from the bus, singing in the car or making a meal are things we might do every day but we are often not really present whilst doing them. The more you practice this, the more energy you’ll have and you’ll feel less exhausted.

2. Need to plan, organise or sort something out? Well, do it. Don’t spend unnecessary time on unimportant or less important things. If something can be done to change a situation you’re not happy with, make steps to change it. So much of our time is taken up by worrying over things we can’t change or that aren’t our business to change. If you know any classic worriers (you may be one yourself) then you’ll know exactly how much time and energy is wasted over this, especially since the things that we usually worry about hardly ever happen.

3. Take your power back! Every day we give control and power over to other people and allow their ideas and what they think of us to control what we do. Why is this? Always remember that criticisms and negativities say more about the person who utters them. Don’t spend time mulling over what someone said about you. You are literally giving power and energy over to that person. Always be yourself. If I had only known this in my teens and twenties! It’s amazing how much easier things get with age and how much less affected you become.

Practise and enjoy these 3 steps and before long, you will begin to feel you are reclaiming your time and energy. Go for it!

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Fri 16 Jul 2010

Being Mindful

Posted by thinking under Wisdom
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The Buddha said that suffering was caused by our inability to accept the impermanent nature of all things and it really makes you think about times when it is most prevalent. I think about what I was like in the past with some relationship break ups, especially if I had created some kind of imaginary future in my head. This inability to accept incompatibility or just the fact that we had grown apart as individuals, was emotionally difficult at the time yet in hindsight, I roll my eyes and see it for what it really was. Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing and when you look at the past objectively, you can take yourself right out of the ego and observe it as if you were a third person.

Eckhart Tolle talks about this both in A New Earth and in The Power of Now, describing ego as the identification with form, our selfishness and seeing ourselves as apart from the whole. This forgetfulness, Tolle describes as “original sin, suffering and delusion.” Also he says, “when the delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs what I think, say and do, what kind of world do I create?” What we create are all the problems that we see on the news every day or read about in the gossip magazines. Just like the Buddha said in The Dhammapada, along with Einstein (who called it an optical illusion of consciousness) and many other switched on men and women, the problem comes with ‘me, me, me’ and ‘my, my, my.’

If we begin to take a more objective view almost like a third person, we can then begin to observe how we react to things. These reactions come from years of emotional response to things and the mental filters we create in our mind which gives our own version of reality, a feeling of separateness. Tolle calls this the ‘pain body’ and describes like this, “the human tendency to perpetuate all emotion that almost everyone carries in his or her energy field of all emotional pain” and “any negative emotion that is not fully faced and seen for what it is in the moment, it arises and does not completely dissolve, leaving behind a remnant.”

The key, as the Buddha said and as Tolle puts so simply is to accept it for what it is and learn from it, see it as it really is. The real cause of the unhappiness is the ego’s reaction to the situation, not the situation itself. “Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking, separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which is always is as it is.”

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Fri 9 Jul 2010

The Dhammapada – Wisdom of Nirvana

Posted by thinking under Wisdom
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Most probably, the book that made me think the most in my childhood and teenage years and also continues to keep me very grounded is The Dhammapada. Originally written and printed in the Pali language, the literal translation is Dhamma-law/teachings and Pada-way/path. This gem is the Buddha’s teachings in a nutshell and forms the basis of all Buddhism, no matter what type it is.

For many years, I taught Buddhism to school students of all ages and these basic teachings often sparked a whole host of philosophical ideas. The very core of these teachings lie in The Four Noble Truths, the first of which, ‘There is Suffering’ is very often misunderstood. It isn’t, as first appears a completely pessimistic take on life, in fact it’s more realistic than you might think. In truth, it means all things are impermanent, nothing lasts forever, we get old, sick and die, relationships change and fall apart, and nothing stays the same. And it’s physics too! Actually the reasoning behind this is not that these things are suffering in themselves but it’s our reaction to them that causes the suffering. When we are attached to how things should be and can’t accept the way things are, this is what gives us all the heartache. This is the 2nd Noble Truth, ‘Suffering is caused by selfishness,’ which is seeing yourself as a separate part of the whole that is everything, as a distinct ego.

Is it possible to eliminate suffering? Yes, and this what the Buddha spent many years discovering. The 3rd Noble Truth ‘The extinguishing of suffering’ is what he called Nirvana, which is quite literally, the blowing out of suffering. He believed it was possible for everyone, regardless of situation, gender or class to eliminate suffering, and we do this through following the Eightfold Path, the 4rth Noble Truth. The path of 8 stages focuses on seeing the world as it actually is, stopping the accumulation of bad karma and practising meditation and mindfulness.

The Dhammapada is an amazingly refreshing read every time I dip into it. It’s amazing how we can get something different each time we return to a book or a movie we love, it’s incredibly indicative of the impermanence and changing nature of ourselves. We are not the same people we were as children, teenagers, even yesterday! This impermanent nature means we can shape tomorrow today, what we think today, we become tomorrow. We never have to be stuck with the same old unproductive thinking because as the Buddha said, ‘the only constant is change.’ And that’s physics too!

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Fri 2 Jul 2010

Rumi – Wisdom of the Heart

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When I was a child, I had the amazing blessing that was my father’s library. I call it the ‘Dreamtime Library’ as it was often a place of escapism and I still have the odd dream about it. There were 3 books that made a particular impression on me, the Tao Te Ching I talked about in my last post, The Dhammapada which I will talk about in my next post and a rather large hardback on the collected works of Sufism. Don’t get me wrong, I was a huge Winnie the Pooh fan, but these 3 works of brilliance are what I often think gave me my restless quest for knowledge and what others may say gave me my rebellious and flighty attitude. Within this third book of the trinity was a collection of selected writings by a man named Mevlana Rumi. I was instantly smitten.

I am always keen to introduce people to the works of Rumi and his work is almost always on my ‘books to buy for friends’ list. He was born in Afghanistan in the 13th century and he lived his life in Konya, Turkey. Now I have been to Turkey many times but I’ve never had the privilege of visiting Konya, perhaps it’s just not my time, yet. I often wonder what it would have been like to meet the man they called, “the spokesman for the religion of love in the language of the heart.” This is a description that is tremendously fitting and says it all, I mean what more do you need? I see so much of a connection between Sufism and other mystical traditions and philosophies of compassion and love, they are all connected. Lao Tzu, the Buddha and Rumi may have used different languages but many of their ideas were fundamentally the same.

For me, timeless wisdom from Rumi comes in the form of discovering your own truth and living in the now. He says, “if you’re knowledge of fire has been turned to certainty by words alone, then seek to be cooked by the fire itself, don’t abide in borrowed certainty.” Not we know of course, children that Rumi was not suggesting we jump in the fire, metaphorically speaking of course, don’t take another’s word for it. I did a post last year where I quoted Descartes saying the same thing, it is important to find your own truth. Sure, there are things we can take for granted that are dangerous and are said for our own good but absolute truth has to be discovered by itself, words don’t do it any justice. Also, if your gut feeling tells you that something is not quite right, no matter what another person is saying, that’s a sure fire sign that a different choice is needed. And what is the best way to access and discover these truths? A favourite quote of mine from Rumi says exactly the same thing as Lao Tzu and the Buddha did centuries before him. He urges us to spend time in solitude, beyond conscious thought and rational reason. However, it’s not necessarily a place of solitude as he understood the complete interconnectedness of all things at the level of the heart. He said, “out beyond the ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” He was truly a spokesman for the religion of love.

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Fri 25 Jun 2010

Tao Te Ching – Wisdom of Stillness

Posted by thinking under Wisdom
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When I first learnt to read, I had my pick of the most amazing and uplifting books that had ever been written. It was like a dream beginning for me. My father was an avid reader of philosophy and spiritual wisdom and I followed suit thanks to the ‘dreamtime’ library. One of my favourite books and one of my earliest memories of inspiration and clear thought was the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. I think the reason why I loved this book so much initially was the beautiful illustrations of China’s landscape in all seasons. This particular version of the book was incredibly in tune with Lao Tzu’s wisdom and the ideas of Taoism in general, due to the breathtaking photography.

It is traditionally thought that the composition of this text was circa the 6th century BC, so its wisdom has been around for a very long time. The ideas are as old as time itself yet surpasses it. For a long time I struggled with the opening words of the book and didn’t get much further because I thought it was mind blowingly perplexing:

“The Tao that can be spoken is not the real Tao.”

However, the fun of this was in fact, at 5 years old, I understood it as, “okay, can’t talk about it, so let’s look at some more of the lovely pictures.” (There was one with a panda that was always my favourite!) Now, all these years later, I know that is exactly what Lao Tzu was trying to convey, we can’t describe it in words so lets understand it by letting go of the thought and absorbing ourselves in the beauty of nature. We can debate about the reality that is in everything and everywhere until we are blue in the face and yet we won’t have described a fraction of it. I think this is where Lao Tzu and Socrates would differ, had they ever met.

Instead of debate, Lao Tzu encourages us to be in solitude and stillness, this alone will bring us the peace and the truth we are seeking. This wisdom, in its pure simplicity, has been passed down from master to student and has been spoken about by every spiritual teacher and writer that has existed since. Why is this such a meaningful and profound message? When you spend some quiet time, just you alone, no-one else, in quiet meditation or contemplation, slowing down that conscious mind chit-chat, that part of you that knows comes to the fore. It has taken me a long time to truly understand the amazing wisdom here, most probably because I never liked spending two minutes on my own let alone half an hour or an hour. Now my best insights come in those times of stillness, it just took me a while to realise the simple wisdom of the Tao Te Ching that was so innate when I was a child.

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Sat 19 Jun 2010

We Always Have Choices

Posted by thinking under Positive Psychology
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Following from my last blog I’d like to continue focus on what constitutes strength in our lives and how we can use these to create a more positive and authentic existence. I’m sure you have all been in a place where you have followed the path of someone else, focused on what you believed to be your strengths only to look back some time later and realise why you were so unhappy. We all have things that we are good at and traits that are authentically us and we all have things that we may choose to develop. However, if you have been spending a lot of time trying to ‘correct your weaknesses’ or living someone else’s dream it isn’t exactly fulfilling nor is it being true to yourself. Most importantly, we have the ability to choose what we want in our life.

We all have strength, real inner strength but are we using that to live the life that we want? Psychiatrist William Glasser talks about the psychology of strength and weakness and how negative addictions are born out of weakness. Firstly, our weaknesses allow us not to take action on a thing that is causing us pain and suffering, so we give up trying. As a result, the pain is still there, so unaware that there is actually a choice, we develop symptoms and can slide into depression. This finally leads us into negative addictions and William says, “the reason addiction is powerful and difficult to break is that it alone of all choices consistently both completely relieves the pain of failure and provides an intensely pleasurable experience.” So Glasser dedicated his life to helping people develop the strength to deal with life’s difficulties.

This approach is wonderful, it’s refreshing, positive, comes from a place of creativity and focuses on the fact that we have a choice. Glasser firmly believes that depression is a choice and not something that is lacking in the brain as is perhaps the common belief. I love this non-traditional approach! How do we focus on our strengths and allow those to dominate our lives? Glasser suggests that we develop ‘positive addiction’ that will increase our strengths and bring empowerment. He gives 6 criteria for developing positive addiction. Find something that…

  1. …is non-competitive and that you can devote approx 1 hour per day to.
  2. …you can do easily that does not require a lot of mental effort.
  3. …you can do alone or that doesn’t depend on others.
  4. …you believe has some value for you.
  5. …you will improve if you persist at it. (but you decide on your improvement)
  6. …is done without any self-criticism. It must be something that you can accept yourself in.

The beauty of this is that it gives confidence and increases self-esteem. It makes you see things from a place of creativity and strength, strength that is always there, and always will be.

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