Category: life

I have just returned from a two week holiday in first, Yorkshire and secondly New York. We will be publishing more articles in the forthcoming weeks.

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Meditation News

Scientists at the University of Oxford have undertaken tests showing that meditation can have a measurable impact upon the brain. BBC meditation link

Professor Mark Williams, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford undertook research on a group of people who practise meditation for 8 weeks. He said the course involved:

“It teaches a way of looking at problems, observing them clearly but not necessarily trying to fix them or solve them.

“It suggests to people that they begin to see all their thoughts as just thoughts, whether they are positive, negative or neutral.”

Although it is difficult to study the scientific evidence of meditation (many other variables could cause changes in mental outlook) it is not the first study to show a positive link.

Picture by: Nabik Daniel Hunt Continue reading “Back from Holiday and Being Peace”

If you have the feeling your life is not going anywhere, there is no reason to despair and feel sorry for yourself. If we have the capacity to go in the wrong direction, we also have the capacity to go in the right direction. These are a few simple ideas that can make a big difference to the future direction of your life.

1. Look forward not Backwards

When we think of the past and what happened, we invariably remember bad experiences. It is important to be able to move forward and look to the future. The past has not given us satisfaction so we have to think of the past as dust. It is only through looking forward and living in the present moment that we can bring real satisfaction into our lives.

2. Avoid Guilt

To be overwhelmed with guilt is to place a heavy chain around our neck. Holding onto guilt and feelings of unworthiness will not help us in anyway to become a better person. We need to learn from experiences; if we have made mistakes we can resolve to avoid repeating them. But, if we allow ourselves to be burdened with guilt it often becomes harder to throw off the unfortunate experience and move on. Forgiveness is a great virtue, and we need to start with forgiveness of our self. Forgiveness means we can wipe the slate clean and aspire for a new start.

3. Hope.

If we have no hope, no aspiration for a better experience, we are already doomed. Hope is the belief and faith that things will improve. Our hope may be quite weak, but unless we can anticipate a better future, it is hard to make it happen. Hope requires self belief and a willingness to suspend the pessimistic worries of our mind. Hope is a dream of a better future.

4. Make A list of Positive Things

It is easy to be overwhelmed by negative experiences. We can easily find many reasons to be dissatisfied or angry with the world. The nature of media and the internet is often to highlight problems, mistakes and bad things. If you find yourself overwhelmed with negativity try writing a list of positive, inspiring things. Find reasons to be optimistic and cheerful. Life is a question of balance; scepticism has its role to play, but we have to also be able to appreciate the good things in life. If we surround ourselves with just negativity we will develop a negative attitude ourselves.

5. Can you Turn bad Experiences around?

If things don’t go as planned, does your world come to an end? The problem is that if we strongly desire and expect a certain outcome, we become frustrated when it doesn’t occur. To get the most out of life we need to be flexible and willing to adapt. Happiness should not depend on events occurring as we want because they never will. Whatever happens in the outer world, we have to remember it is our inner attitude which is important. When we encounter testing experiences, don’t be despondent and feel sorry for ourselves, consider how we can turn this around.

Continue reading “How To Turn Your Life Around.”

Photo by: Kedar of Life Voices – a blog of the extraordinary in everyday life
I recently wrote an article for Pick the Brain. How to deal with anxiety

One article from the archive Practical tips to increase concentration

Some recent links that caught my eye.

• How To ask positive questions at Personal development blog
• Steven Aitchison looks at 12 ways to make yourself miserable
• 7 ways to live a more balanced life by Scott Young
• 7 lessons from the greatest minds by Jonathon Mead
• Tips for writing effective emails at Net writing

To get up early in the morning is a real boon. Nearly everybody would appreciate more time; after all, most things are more useful than sleeping. However, to get up early in the morning is not always easy especially if we are used to lying in. As as a student I got into the habit of sleeping in, waking up and then going back to snooze for ‘just’ another half an hour. However, that the extra half an hour doesn’t give you any more energy; it can even make you feel more lethargic.

If we are determined to get up early we can consider the following tips:

1. Set the alarm at a regular time each day.

The body is a creature of habit, if we develop the routine of getting up at a certain time, then it becomes easier and more natural to wake up at our target time. If we are not used to waking up early it may be a shock to the system; however, it is important to persevere and continue getting up at this time – even at the Weekends. By getting up at the same time each day it helps to set the body clock. If we are lucky there may come a time when we spontaneously wake up early.

2. Be Careful with the Snooze button.

It is better to set the alarm and get up at that time. If we keep pressing the snooze button it becomes difficult to get up. When we lie in bed, hoping to get an extra 10 minutes rest, we are not actually sleeping. The longer we doze, the more difficult it becomes to get up. One trick is to put the alarm clock at the far end of the room. This means to turn it off you actually have to get out of bed – don’t make it easy to go back to sleep.

3. Be Motivated to get up.

The key to getting up early in the morning is our desire to get up early. If we are really motivated to wake up at a certain time, we will not let the mind create excuses for going back to sleep. It is worth making a list of things we can do early in the morning. Early morning can be productive because the environment of the house is usually a bit quieter. Whatever your personal list maybe, it’s probably better than sleeping in. If we really value the benefits of getting up early we will make it happen.

Continue reading “How To Get Up Early in the Morning”

The inner art of meditation can sometimes be portrayed in a rather staid and boring light as the mere clearing of thoughts, but anyone who has meditated for a number of years will that this is simply not so. Meditation is self-discovery, and just as outer travel can allow you to absorb all of the beauty and diversity that the huge array of cultures on this planet have to offer, so inner exploration can reveal a vast canvas of possibility just as varied and beautiful as anything obtainable by outer travel. I have always been fascinated by the notion of meditation and self-discovery as one giant adventure, and I hope in this article to share with you some of that sense of adventure and exploration that meditation can bring.

So where to start? In keeping with the ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’ analogy of our title, let’s think of our mere human mind as the planet Earth. There are quite a few similarities – it’s familiar, it’s a comfort zone, there’s a lot of “fury and sound, signifying nothing” (as Shakespeare’s Macbeth would put it), and there’s the definite temptation to fall into the trap of feeling that that what you see is pretty much all there is. Like the planet Earth, we often head off on a so-called straight line of thought and instead end up at the same place having gone round in circles, and of course the mind also insists that it places itself at the very centre of the universe, pretty much like it used to be on Earth!

But then, just as there came a time when we realised that right above our heads was infinite vastness, and that those little dots in the sky were signposts to worlds far beyond the our reach, similarly there comes a time when we realise that beyond our limited mind lies something very vast indeed in the middle of our chest, at the very core of our being. And just as astronomers of old lay with their heads staring at the night sky wishing that someday they could travel to the stars, a yearning builds up inside us for something deeper than the machinations of the mind. And yet various obstacles prevent us from making that journey; technological in their case, fear and lethargy in ours. But then one day push comes to shove, the call of the stars proves too strong to resist, and our journey begins.

Continue reading “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe within You”

A few thoughts on life.:

• It is easy to see the faults in others; but how many people are willing to admit their own faults and limitations?
• We rarely regret being kind and sympathetic to others.
• Money cannot guarantee us happiness, but neither can poverty. Happiness requires a detachment from both financial worries and a desire for endless riches.
• We spend hours at school learning calculus and other useless subjects; we spend hours learning to drive a car and how to fill in tax forms. Why can’t we spend a few minutes learning how to control our own mind?
• The fulfilment of a desire rarely brings peace, usually new desires take their place.
• If we avoid a problem, we usually find the problem occurs in a different set of circumstances. No matter how hard we try to avoid it, eventually we have to face up to the problem.
• “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars” – Oscar Wilde. To some people the world is a depressing and ugly place; to others the world is beautiful and full of hope. It is all a matter of choice.

Continue reading “40 Observations on life”

The word ‘love’ is perhaps one of the most casually used terms in the English language – so much so that it has become an umbrella term for a whole variety of very different emotions! There is one thing we all agree on – that love is what makes the world go round, and that without it, the world is but a dry empty shell of a place. On the other hand, it is a word we very easily twist around to our own purposes to justify our emotional dependence on a person. If we can learn to distinguish love from emotional dependence and put this distinction into practice, then we make life more beautiful not only for us, but for everyone we come into contact with.

1. Learn to love yourself first

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven.

~William Shakespeare

Often when we are emotionally dependent on someone, we are looking to them as a ‘filler’ to cover over and distract us from unresolved emotional issues in ourselves. In order to truly love someone, we first have to discover and explore what love is, and that means starting with the person you spend the most time with – yourself! We can often name our shortcomings far quicker than our positive qualities, and we are very quick to beat ourselves up for anything we didn’t do to our satisfaction. This all has to change. Try every day to identify your positive qualities and bring them more to the fore and increase them, and when you do make a mistake, try and see it as a ‘work-in-progress’ rather than an absolute failure. When your own self-love and self-respect increases, you are then able to approach relationships with others with much more equanimity.

Continue reading “How to distinguish between love and emotional dependence”

It is interesting to consider why we instinctively respect some people, but others can be very hard to appreciate. Respect doesn’t necessarily mean we have to agree with everything they say; respect comes from people’s inner life, and the values and beliefs they hold. If someone is sincere, honest and self effacing it is easy to respect them, even if they believe in a different life philosophy. If we can understand why some people instinctively gain respect, we can learn to implement these characteristics in our own life.

Talk Less

We do not command respect by excessively talking. The oft repeated saying ‘actions speak louder than words’ is very applicable here. If we do the right thing and become the right person, we do not to justify our actions with words. Talking less does not mean that we ignore the power of the spoken word; it means that we speak when necessary. Don’t get worked up by every small incident; intervene only on important events. If we are judicious in speaking people will give more importance to our words. If we speak loudly on every minor issue, people will just start to swtich off.

True words aren’t eloquent;
eloquent words aren’t true.
Wise men don’t need to prove their point;
men who need to prove their point aren’t wise.

– Lao Tzu.Tao Te Ching Verse 81

Listen More

Everyone likes to have their own say. If we can patiently listen to others they will appreciate our concern and attention. Even if it is a little boring and repetitive, there is no harm in listening to what others have to say; listening to others shows that we are interested in them as a person. Listening more is the perfect complement to talking less. When we talk we try to influence others, when we listen we appreciate others; it is important to get the right balance.

Sincere Appreciation

There is a big difference between sincere appreciation, and flattery which hopes for similar words to be repaid in kind. Take the time to look for people and actions which really deserve appreciation and be generous in offering it to others. It is also important to be judicious in offering praise to others; if we do it all the time it starts to become insincere.

Non Judgemental

It is easy to build up lists of people we like and people we dislike. Our mind gets drawn to the faults of others, but if we are always picking up on the limitations and faults of others, it will diminish our own standing. To be non judgemental and accepting of others is a very powerful trait to develop. In society there can be a certain peer pressure to join in criticising others; there is a peer pressure to accept the gossip of the world. However, if we can be detached and non judgemental people will subconsciously respect our attitude a lot. To be really non judgemental, we should not even start criticising people who started the gossip. Our attitude can be – We have enough problems to deal with ourselves, without worrying about the failings of other people.

Continue reading “How to Gain the Respect of Others”

We are creatures of habit, but unfortunately the habits we pick up often limit our happiness and sense of fulfilment. The worst habit we can have is the inability to make any changes, but continue with a perpetual negative attitude. If we can recognise our own bad habits we can create the necessary steps to making meaningful changes in our life. These are some of our most common bad habits in modern life.

Constantly Busy

Is your life constantly hectic, with a never ending strain on your time and nerves? Do you have time to enjoy the finer things of life? Sometimes, even the most financially successful people find it difficult to create leisure time where we can relax and be at peace. It is always possible to create activity and things to do, but many of these activities are invariably non essential. Modern technology is supposed to help make life easier, not make us constantly busy. Learn how to let go of things like email addiction – create time for yourself and your own relaxation. How to Find Time for Relaxation

Getting up Late

The best part of the day is often the morning. Yet, the mind and body can be uncooperative, causing us to sleep in for longer than necessary. It is a shame to waste so many hours. Create good sleeping habits, that help you to get up early in the morning; once you have got used to more hours in the morning you will not want to go back to having more sleep than necessary. 8 Ways to get better sleep
Worrying About Money

We cannot avoid financial issues, but we can prevent them from dominating our lives. Sometimes money worries occur because we create ever increasing levels of personal debt. This can be due to unnecessary overspending or poor financial management. Don’t feel happiness is dependent on levels of consumption; if we avoid overspending and creating debt we can avoid much mental anguish. At the other end of the scale, even people who are financially successful can still give too much priority to money. There is more to life than just earning money; don’t use every moment of your life to think how you can increase your wealth. Don’t sacrifice current opportunities and your current happiness just to save money for when you retire. Have a positive attitude to money that doesn’t allow financial concerns to dominate your life.

Continue reading “Do These Habits Prevent You from Enjoying Life?”