Weekly Reflections

An Oasis is a good place to pause and reflect. Each of my weeks provides ample inspiration in terms of topics; from coaching sessions, conversations with family and friends, my own reading, or one of the many podcasts I absorb when on the move. A topic will resonate with me early in the week and I get great pleasure from the iterative process of drafting, revising, polishing, and finalising each essay. Then comes the selection of a suitable photo, usually a product of yet another creative hobby of mine. I invite you take a little time out, to create your own six-minute oasis, find a comfortable chair, and read. You will hopefully find some inspiration from or a degree of identification in these Weekly Reflections. If you do, feel free to subscribe to this section. You will then receive future installments directly by email. Also, feel free to share the link among your circle of friends and associates. Finally, feedback and comments are always most welcome. EnJOY!

Community

Trapped

As long as we are constantly hijacked by our Saboteurs, fear rules our lives and the lives of those around us. This takes place sometimes very obviously, sometimes more subtly. Fear’s toolbox contains a very powerful device that, if not addressed and relinquished, will ensure that the old order will forever rule the day. This device is denial. For many years I stewed in the juice of denial. Sara Bareilles describes the dynamic eloquently in her sublime song “Orpheus“:
Missing the world
The one you knew
The one where everything made sense because you
didn’t know the truth…..

Indeed, many of us didn’t know the truth for long stretches of our lives. Denial has an important role to play in our survival…

Leadership

Mind The Gap!

My general observations lead me to conclude that we are either in autopilot and react in line with the coping mechanisms and survival strategies we developed before our fourth birthday (approximately) or, having developed sufficient awareness, mindfulness, and mental fitness, we learn to pause before responding to whatever stimuli cross our paths in a conscious, loving manner – beneficial to the healing, growth, and joy of all concerned. The term “autopilot” may be considered charitable. Some would call it “sleepwalking through life” (Dr Allen Berger) or even refer to a “Zombie” existence. And of course, this is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon…

PQ Mental Fitness

Balance

So, it was really telling when, in a recent yoga lesson, we went though balance exercises which included the Vrikshasana (The Tree Pose, where standing on one foot we bring the other to the inside of our upper thigh), that the terror of childhood – as a felt state – returned. My heart began to race; I began to sweat and couldn’t maintain my balance for longer that twenty seconds. Of even more interest was the fact that my breathing froze. Despite all the insights and, indeed, practice in so many other modalities and situations, here we had the default patterns re-asserting themselves immediately, and with a vengeance…

Community

Dis-illusion

Then there is the case of Deepak Chopra whom I have admired as a spiritual teacher and a person who has not only achieved heightened states of awareness but has also been very effective in helping those who have embarked on a similar quest. What alarms me is the documented propinquity, familiarity, and absence of scruples between this powerful spiritual figure and a man (Epstein) whose crimes against children and young women were not only widely known but had already led to criminal prosecution. When someone claims moral authority, association itself becomes evidence of lack of discernment. When Chopra positioned himself as a global moral authority, and spoke endlessly about consciousness, healing, and enlightenment, while simultaneously maintaining close relationship and correspondence with one of the most documented child sex traffickers in modern history, no further “evidence” of his spiritual bankruptcy is needed.

Community

Slave Patrols

I have been living in Germany for many decades now. My arrival was preceded by the NBC mini-series on the Holocaust which had been broadcast on German TV over four consecutive nights in January 1979 and coincided with public interest in the third instalment of the Majdanek trials, the longest Nazi war crimes trial in history, spanning over 30 years. Members of the main government party, the Social Democrats, had seen the original — English language — NBC series some months earlier and urged its broadcast in Germany, dubbed in German, of course. Broadcast on WDR State TV, the viewership was estimated to have comprised up to 15 million households or 20 million people, approximately 50% of West Germany’s entire adult population….

Mental Fitness

Emotional Availability

Part of the original process of suppressing my feelings was the creation of a kind of mélange in which feelings, emotions, beliefs, and interpretations were all mixed up together, leading to confusion, or zero emotional visibility, to borrow a phrase from meteorology.

“I feel neglected” is not a feeling. It is a belief that we hold. “You are disrespecting me” is an interpretation. “She’s plain evil” is a judgement. “You make my life miserable” is an accusation. “I feel deeply sad” is, indeed, the expression of a feeling. To make matters even more complicated, the boundaries between me and the other (Mother, Father, sibling, etc.) became fuzzy, so I couldn’t be really sure if that which I was feeling belonged to me or someone else…

Peace of MInd

Fate

After several failed attempts, one day, at last, Finnegas caught the Salmon of Knowledge. He brought it home and instructed Fionn to cook it, warning him not to taste even a single bite. As Fionn roasted the fish on a spit over the open fire, he noticed the scaly skin forming blisters. Of course, he wanted the fish not only to taste delicious but to be well presented, so he pressed his thumb on a blister to flatten it down. In doing so, he burned his thumb on the hot skin. Without thinking, he put his thumb into his mouth to sooth the pain. In that moment, all the wisdom of the salmon passed into him…

Community

Leading Meditation

I like the story about Mother Teresa being once asked by a young journalist to describe her daily prayer and meditation practice.
“I simply sit in silence and pray”, she answered with clarity.
“What do you say?”, asked the journalist, intrigued.
“Oh, I say nothing. I simply listen to God.” she replied.
“And what does God say? ” asked the journalist, sniffing a sensation…
“God doesn’t say anything, either,” responded the old nun with a smile. “God simply listens also.”
“If you have never had the experience, nobody can explain it to you,” she then finished, bowed courteously, and went on her way…

Community

Being “Good”

“A miracle is a shift from fear to love,” states Marianne Williamson in her commentary on “A Course In Miracles”. That shift, and the awareness of how it can be achieved, is now spreading through recovery communities like wildfire. By recovery communities, I mean the movement originally spawned by a bunch of alcoholics in New York City and Akron, Ohio in the late 1930’s which eventually spread around the world as Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, with membership in the millions, there are over 200 fellowships dealing with the plethora of addictions which plague humanity, such as Workaholism, Food Addiction, Gambling, and most recently, Media Addiction, to mention but a few…

Community

Shyness

Whenever I find myself alone among strangers in a dance class for couples to learn something like foxtrot, a feeling of distress begins to arise, with accelerated heartbeat, increased sweating, and light nausea, such that I generally leave before the real action begins. I console myself with the thoughts of how much I like dancing solo in a crowd, and even with fantasies that, one fine day, a beautiful partner will have sufficient patience and loving kindness to be able and willing to bear with me as I gradually master the moves, the rhythm, and the coordinated steps…

Community

Book your free session now!

Translate »