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!
For my emotional sobriety, I avail of a variety of resources such as the Twelve Step Recovery Programme, the PQ Mental Fitness modality, and further elements from ancient spiritual to most recent neuroscientific practices, including many body-based therapy forms which have emerged over recent years. These help me retain, and where necessary, regain my balance, always following the principle of `progress, not perfection´…
Further, more detailed data on these rising figures published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that from 2010 to 2019 in the United States, breast cancer accounted for the highest number of cases in the under-fifty population, while rates of gastrointestinal cancers were rising the fastest. This dramatic increase in gastrointestinal cancers alone demonstrates the implications and risks associated with our modern culture…
The necessity of `dying to the old´ is the crux of the challenge. For, no matter how we have matured, an old script etched on our psyche keeps admonishing us to avoid the dangers and pain of death at all costs. Better the devil we know than the devil we don’t know, the Saboteurs declare. They also incite blame and resentment, which perpetuate the old. Forgiveness is the product of Sage, an indispensable component of relinquishing the old, to make way for the new: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do…
Evolution is a slow process. Our bodies have evolved over thousands of generations to extract and digest proteins, calories, and vitamins from organic food in a certain way; ultra-processing interferes with that. It’s not necessarily that we’re eating too many calories (which we are) and engaging in insufficient regular exercise (also true), it’s that those calories, now synthesised, are coming in a way that our bodies cannot effectively assimilate. This is the advent of the Super-Size-Me Effect…
Intelligent beings that we are, we develop strategies to survive. The first element is to identify the cause of the problem. The idea that our parents are not up to the task of child-rearing is so cataclysmic that we deduce that the problem must lie in the only other variable of the equation, namely in ourselves. The pain, shame, and guilt resulting from the conclusion that we are unlovable are easier to endure that the spectre of incapable parents, on whom we are still fully dependent…
The Mind Command piece is pivotal. When we recognise that the Saboteurs have become active, we use brief powerful body-based exercises to bring us back into the present moment. These produce the effect of circuit-breakers in our stinking thinking, so that, in this new placid awareness, we can consciously switch from Saboteur to Sage, and thereupon determine our next move…
Worrying about what others think of us leads to a constrained life where actions are taken not for personal satisfaction but for external validation. It is we, ourselves, who engineer the role of becoming a puppet on a string, even without the participation or even the knowledge of those who are ostensibly `pulling our strings´…
In the cultivation of emotional sobriety, we first become the witness to our own patterns of thinking and feeling. This is achieved by taking inventory of self. We then learn that we can have our feelings without our feelings having, (i.e., controlling) us. We come to realise that there is a gap between impulse and riposte, and that we can begin to work with, and gradually take up conscious residence in, that gap…
I cannot remember a period prior to incessant rumination about who I was going to be when I grew up. In retrospect, under ideal circumstances this question would never have arisen. I would have been secure in simply being me. That would have been the sturdy foundation for further healthy growth and development. In the absence of such a foundation, we develop neurotic tendencies and come to believe in the reality of our idealized self. The false self lures us into the belief that it is the only true self. We have been hypnotized, have fallen asleep…
While wisdom had accrued on how to protect crops using natural methods, the concept of applying synthetic toxins in the process of growing food had not yet emerged. It was a niche which began to be exploited by the chemical industry as soon as the markets of World War II abruptly began to fall away. It was at this point that the focal point of food was moved from the soil and the kitchen to the laboratory…
The most challenging years of life are, by definition, those early formative ones. Clinical research points to the fact that the fundamental wiring of our neural networks is almost completely laid down by our fourth birthday. These networks determine our temperament, our behavioral patterns, and belief systems well into adulthood. They will remain dominant until we consciously begin the practice of rewiring, of rewriting the script – if we are so lucky to realize the possibility of doing so…
When we experience pain, whether due to current issues (a bereavement, a setback, the break-up of a relationship, etc.) or the reactivation of an old episode of pain from the past (e.g. childhood trauma), a common reaction is to want to “unmake” the pain — to make it go away. This is a very human reaction and thus quite understandable. Who wants to experience pain? However, when we learn to shift from being reactive to being “response-able” (a practical definition of Emotional Sobriety), we can accept the painful stimulus as is, and then utilise it as a cue — usually in the form of a new patterns of thinking, feeling, and taking action — which will help us move forward in a healthy manner.
“Living in the echo chamber of my childhood” is how I would describe the unfolding process. The impacts experienced today are, in some way, reverberations of the “old ideas” initially formed in childhood. It is a beckoning for attention, to address those elements — hitherto hidden — that still require healing, the progeny of which are constrictive patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving which no longer serve me. This is where old beliefs about money once more appeared on my mental radar screen. I believe they can be traced back through the paternal line…
