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

Selfless Service

In the stillness of my own heart, the feast of Easter has taken on a special meaning over the years. This feast is always a welcome reminder to reflect upon and develop this meaning even further. When exploring the contents of the great spiritual teachings, I am always keen to discover the metaphorical meaning of the events described therein. Did a great 33-year-old prophet really die brutally on a cross and rise from the physical death three days later? Perhaps. In my view, the meaning and spirit of the story have more power than the, often disputed, facts…

Self-Care

Intention

When I am out of sorts, – restless, irritable, and discontented – it invariably turns out that, for reasons often beyond my grasp, I have fallen off the beam of conscious awareness and end up suffering from the illusion of disconnection from Source. The result is a combination of feelings: anxiety, overwhelmed, disconsolate, and forlorn…

Mental Fitness

Guilty!

He has stopped running now, got exhausted, ran out of steam, and arrived at a turning point where a decision had to be made. Was it going to be a continuation of the No to life, or an embracing of the Yes. He chose the latter. Turning around to face what he had been avoiding all along, he recognised the wound, the original sin inculcated in his childhood self and later self-perpetuated when he became his own prison guard on death row. The accusation of having been guilty of causing another’s unhappy demise…

Community

Safe At Last

In what could be described as the echo chamber phenomenon, this fear of apparent danger is activated when no such fears are pertinent to the current situation. Today’s situation provides the activation for fears which no longer apply. They have their origin in days long past. These phantoms, these fears from the past will have a hold over us until we address and resolve them. Until that happens we suffer from neurosis. `Neurotic means repetition of archaic ways of protecting ourselves from what no longer truly threatens us´, writes David Richo in his masterful `When Love Meets Fear´.

Mental Fitness

Astronomical

Finding a free bench in the park outside the village, I settled in for a longer period just before the eclipse reached its climax at ten minutes past noon. Now, totally relaxed and in awe of what was happening, my heart began to fill with gratitude. What a privilege to be able to experience something so superb! As I watched in awe, two contrasting ideas came to mind. The first concerned vastness and infinity. What an amazing notion, to consider that our solar system is at the edge of a galaxy which is only one of between 100 billion and 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe…

Mental Fitness

Religious Abuse

Over time, as we heal, we will grow in compassion. This is extended to our biological parents and other caregivers who may have also experienced religious abuse, been hampered in their own experience (or lack thereof) of spirituality, and did not have access to the wide array of recovery resources available to us today. Some of these are innovations, such as trauma therapy, which have been developed in our lifetime. Finding a Power of our understanding, a `Power greater than ourselves´, is essential for long term recovery and real inner transformation….

Community

Be Kind!

On one such engagement he was holding a symposium for corporate executives on the topic of leadership. He began by asking those members of the audience who had grandchildren to raise their hands. Most of the hands went up. He then asked them at exactly what point of the day they switched from being loving grandfathers (most were men) to being CEOs, incumbents of corporate power, who made largely rational, short-term yet wide-reaching decisions which ultimately undermine the future of our grandchildren and subsequent generations…

Community

Peace

As we make progress in establishing, maintaining, and increasing Mental Fitness, we can apply this three-step process in real time, thereby nipping the exertions of the Saboteurs in the bud, before damage occurs. Since we are not saints, we will not succeed in this every time. With practice, however, we will gain traction in thwarting their efforts while increasingly applying the Powers of Sage in navigating our lives. In cases where we do get hijacked, the return to balance (ease) and making amends will happen more and more swiftly. This is a measure of our newly attained resilience.

PQ Mental Fitness

Defences

It has become clear to me, over time, that most of my anger comes, primarily, from a place of deep sadness. Sadness at the loss of what might have been, what I feel could or perhaps should have been. The premature loss of innocence, the brutally truncated childhood, and unfortunate catapulting into preposterous responsibilities that nobody should be forced to bear at such a tender age. As long as we are incapable or unwilling to grieve these losses, we will continue to overlook the resources that life offers us.

Peace of MInd

Silence

So, the deeper I get into the silence, the more I anticipate the eruption. Avoiding silence at all costs can appear very enticing. Such attempts can be maintained over decades, through busyness or other forms of addictive habits and compulsive behavioural patterns. At some point, however, we generally crash and burn. This turning point, in retrospect, is the moment of opportunity, an opportunity to stop running, to practice interoception and to choose – in self-actualization – another way of living. Every programme of self-actualization includes meditation, prayer, and contemplation, in some form or other…

Community

Going Upstream

Imagine a village in the foothills of a major mountain range, a village where time has appeared to stand still, bisected by a river, always cool from the glacial melt, framed on each bank by snowfields in winter and bright, iridescent, buzzing meadows in summer. Life was carefree and easy in this village until a strange phenomenon arose. First, a lone body washed up on the edge of the pool right in the middle of the hamlet. The inhabitants were perplexed and shaken. This had never happened in living memory. The corpse, which could not be identified, was respectfully buried in accordance with the cultural mores and the villagers returned to their daily routines…

Men's Circles

Alexithymia

A case was described whereby a struggling client — a very successful man by all the criteria of our society; self-made millionaire, respected in the community, handsome, fit & healthy, seemingly intact family life, vibrant social network, etc. — was having difficulties in his “empty nest” marriage because he felt that his wife was not displaying sufficient willingness to have sex with him whenever he (apparently often) wanted. “Oh boy! “, I thought, “this is not new to me.” Thinking back to my VIP (Very Important Patrick) days, when I was proud of the fact that my average working week surpassed sixty hours, when, as an executive in a multi-national corporation, I racked up many hundred thousand air miles, it was clear to me that I, too, had fallen prey to the “sacrifice indulge syndrome”…

Community

Totality

In her book, Arendt notes that, by stoking tribal nationalism, any nation of people can be persuaded that it is surrounded by “a world of enemies”. This paranoid state then makes way for the ideology that states that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with and better than all others, thereby excluding the very possibility of a common family of humankind, a sisterhood and brotherhood of all humans, indeed of Creation as a divine whole. For such a ploy to succeed, the innate human sense of community (among peoples) and belonging (to the wider sphere of the natural world) needs to be smashed…

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