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!

Business Performance

Nomen est Omen

On looking up `sober´, in addition to the more obvious meaning of `not being intoxicated´, a second definition is listed, namely; `based on sound reasoning or information´ as in `a sober assessment of the situation´.
Webster´s gives us two definition of oasis, as follows; `A fertile or green area in an arid region (such as a desert)´ and `Something that provides refuge, relief, or pleasant contrast´, as in `the small park is a welcome oasis amid the city’s many factories´. The roots go back to an Egyptian term wḥꜢ.t with the meaning; `fertile area in the desert´.

Mental Fitness

`Playing God´

`You need to quit playing God!´ This is what I heard more than once in my early years of recovery from alcoholism. It precipitated an undifferentiated jolt, like an earthquake deep under the sea bed, although the meaning of the statement, and the associated possible consequences, went way over my head. Perhaps I did not want to understand.

Community

Apocalypse Now

Generally speaking the meaning of this (nowadays emotive) term, with its roots in Old Greek (apokalyptein – “uncover, disclose, reveal,” from apo “off, away from” + kalyptein “to cover, conceal,”) refers to `drawing back the veil´ in order to see things differently, perhaps even moving from `perception´ to `vision´, and hence from `illusion´ to `truth´. This rang a bell with me when I remembered what Wayne Dyer used to say about `not seeing the world as it is, but rather as we are´

Business Performance

Daily Structure

The issue of boredom came up in a conversation during the week. A young friend was complaining about it, saying that he was plagued by the long days in lockdown, feeling depleted and guilty about how he was squandering his time. Only later in the day, long after we had parted, did it hit me that the real issue was apathy, a topic not often discussed.

“Apathy is the belief, `I can´t´. It is the feeling that we cannot do anything about our situation and no one else can help. It is hopelessness and helplessness.´´ Thus writes David Hawkings in his magnum opus `Letting Go´

Mental Fitness

Paradox

While it is true that the spiritual path is open to everybody, not everybody follows the call. Some never even get to hear the call. This remains one of the great mysteries, to be simply accepted as a characteristic of the human condition.

Mental Fitness

Our True Element

For most of my life, I fell prey to the very widespread illusion that the cause of all my problems is ‘out there’. In practical terms, it unfolds roughly as follows: Whenever I experienced `irritation´ in the world `out there´ (when my plans fell through, when I didn’t get my way, regretted the past, feared the future, or when I adjuged that I was being treated unjustly of unfairly, etc.), I reacted by exerting more force to `kick the world into shape´. Despite my heroic efforts, it rarely worked.

Community

Imbolc

Despite having lived in Continental Europe for decades, my inner clock still marks time as I first encountered the concept in my Irish childhood. While, in early adulthood, the hard Bavarian winters often froze our garden pond from early December through to late March, my soul would begin to yearn for the first flashes of colour even before January came to an end. The snowdrops, crocuses and narcissi spung up before my mind’s eye, causing a palpable perception of temporal misalignment between the inner and outer worlds.

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…

Weekly Reflections

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