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!
Most of what blocks us from the Spirit is unconscious. A key role of the sponsor is to help me, the candidate, to discover my blind spots – my shadow – so that it can be integrated over time. This can only succeed if the sponsor is prepared to be vulnerable in the sense that she is willing to share her own ongoing shadow work…
Some Saboteurs are stealthier than others. It is a characteristic of our human condition to overlook some things in our field of vision. I certainly had. There are always blind spots. This happens due to our innate imperfection. This is neither good nor bad. It is simply the way it is…
To succeed, any transformation process must comprise roughly 20% insights and 80% practice. For this reason, the thrust of the PQ Programme is practice. Full commitment from the outset is required. Wisely accommodating ourselves (surrendering) to what is beyond our control, is the prerequisite for progress. Perseverance is the fuel that keeps us going. Resilience, – ever faster recovery from setbacks, – is the reward. Happiness, in the sense of the fulfilment of our full potential in alignment with our purpose, our passions, and deeply held values, is the outcome…
The Inner Critic (Judge) is never satisfied, always chanting the mantra: `I will be happy, when…..´ and that `when´ never comes, of course. The Controller never gives up on trying to dictate the winds rather than allowing us to develop the capacity to surf, and trust, the waves. The Victim keeps telling us that..
The third possibility is to try to find some subset of the domain into which you have come that can receive even a little portion of what you have to give. This is the pedagogical attitude of helping them to realize the need; what you needed, received, and have now got to give. Those are the only possibilities…
Even though we made our first connection a mere month ago, the not-so-suprising fact, considering the parallels in our life experience, was that we got on so well, as if we had been friends all our lives. This is reflected in our wonderful conversation about The Great Spirit, the Universe, Life’s Challenges, Adversity, Courage, Recovery, PQ Mental Fitness, Transformation, and Paying Forward to the next generation..
My life then took a dark turn. Many years were to follow in limbo, spent in the no-man’s-land of clubs and pubs; numbing and self-medication, whereby my feeling got stuffed ever deeper, until the anaesthesia was almost complete. “Lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely; a story with a middle only,” wrote the contemporary Irish poet, Paul Durcan at around that time…
We know that our ability to feel pain is essential. If you touch a hot stove, it’s good to feel pain so you’re alerted to the danger to your body and rapidly remove your hand before lasting damage is caused. Similarly negative emotions like stress, fear, anger, disappointment, guilt, and shame are extremely helpful to alert you that something needs your attention. These are signposts pointing inward, despite our initial conviction that the solutions are to be found `out there´…
Sitting in the kitchen of a friend’s house, holding in my hands one of the few remaining prized possessions, – my hardback copy of John O Donohue’s `Anam Cara´, – I opened it at a random page to read: `Many of the things that hold us back from inhabiting our destiny are false. They are only images in our minds. They are not real barriers at all. We should never allow our fears or the expectation of others to set the frontiers of our destiny.´…
On a beautiful sunny May afternoon, Cologne Cathedral, one of Europe’s finest architectural and cultural gems, is thronged with awestruck visitors. The bright sunlight is streaming through the many spectacular stained-glass windows, creating an almost psychedelic kaleidoscopic experience. At the base of each window, a religious teacher is singing the praises of his particular window. The Rabbi, the Imam, the Bishop, the Zen Master, the Hindu Guru, and so on; each explaining to the curious on-lookers why their window is the best one, the one worthy of all our attention, even devotion. They have lost sight of the light, the light that is streaming through all the windows…
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…
