http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/ en andrea.nolan@onelife2live.co.uk Copyright 2012 2012-05-02T20:07:34+00:00 http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/when-what-is-in-the-way-is-the-way/ http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/when-what-is-in-the-way-is-the-way/#When:20:07 We often have a notion that life should be easy. Even though our experience is different from that, we hold in our minds that life should be a lot more straightforward than it turns out to be. That is a useful concept to hold in some respects because if we knew the challenges we would face in life we would probably never start half the things we do. Our blindness can serve the purpose of allowing us to begin something. We feel the call to adventure, the urge to change something about our lives and start something new. If we were informed in advance of the challenges we would face we would probably never respond. Our dreams and visions very rarely cater for the difficulties we may encounter in attaining them but it is precisely the positive end point we hold in our minds that motivates us to act and allows us to begin something of importance. However, once into something, events can turn out differently. Our fantasies of skipping through the daisy field of life can take a knock back when the skies darken, the rain falls and all the ugly weeds begin to surface. We say, ‘This is not how it was meant to be! I was promised daisies and you’re giving me weeds; I expected sunshine and you’re giving me rain; I was meant to skip across the field surrounded by a halo of light but instead I find myself wading inch-by-inch through a quagmire of mud, with not even a hint of a Ready-brek glow to show for it.’ Our vision is now under serious challenge and the joy of what we are searching for can begin to get lost. Part of the issue is that we are never taught to expect difficulties. Difficulties are seen as inconveniences and are either an indicator that something is wrong with the world and everyone else or that something is wrong with us. When we take the view that something is wrong with the world or with others then we blame it or them for breaking an agreement that they never made. We argue with reality and find it difficult to detach ourselves from what we expected things to be like in our minds. When we blame ourselves, we can tend to form the view that perhaps we are not up to the job and our self-esteem is negatively impacted. Either way, the difficulty is something that has got in the way of our plans and may be a reason for giving up, rather than a source of information about our circumstances, or about ourselves, from which we can learn. In his book The Road Less Travelled, M Scott Peck opens by saying that life is difficult. This is a given and once we can accept it, life is no longer difficult because the process of acceptance means we don’t resist it any more and it doesn’t matter as much. My own experiences have taught me that difficulties are inevitable. They do not signify that everything is wrong with the world. Neither do they signify that we are not up to the job. They are the means through which we meet the current limitations of our experience and capabilities. They also offer us an opportunity to move beyond those in some way. It is my belief that if we are to achieve our vision and dreams we need to grow psychologically and spiritually into a healthier and more expanded version of our current selves. Part of the way in which we achieve that is by facing the difficulties that come our way and doing our best to work through them. A difficulty is an opportunity to learn a new skill, to find something out about ourselves that we may or may not like, and to expand our capacity to act. It is by working through our difficulties that we move beyond our current limitations. It is by opening up to challenges that we gain insight and wisdom and they are the means through which our experience of life becomes more grounded, meaningful and real. Facing our difficulties, however, requires two things. The first is the willingness to make mistakes and to declare ourselves a beginner in something. If we pretend we know it all, or deny the fact that we make mistakes, we are not open to learning. If we cannot declare ourselves a beginner then we reduce our opportunities to expand. This can be particularly difficult when we are used to being the ‘expert’ at something and are normally called upon to provide answers. Stepping into the unknown, however, requires us to be OK with not knowing. It is only when we can admit that we don’t know something that we can open ourselves up to something new. To face our difficulties means declaring that what lies ahead is something for which we are not quite equipped but we are willing to embrace it anyway. It is only by doing this that we begin to acquire what we need to move beyond the challenge. In that process we will inevitably make mistakes but mistakes do not signify failure. They are the means through which we learn how we can improve things for next time and inform ourselves about what we can do differently to hopefully improve the outcome. The second thing that facing our difficulties requires is the commitment to live life more consciously. Many people live life at a largely unconscious level. Their beliefs have been handed down by their families, religion or other such means and they rarely question whether these are true, useful or life-affirming. A married woman who believes it is her role to always support her husband’s line will never challenge him when she thinks he is acting in a way which is counter-productive to his own career. Rather than open up a discussion, she will tell herself it is not her place to do that. When he gets demoted, or loses his job, it never occurs to her that her own unwillingness to voice her concerns has anything to do with the matter. A manager who believes that his team’s role is to tow the party line will always view a lone voice from one of its members as dissent. He or she will not think there may be a valid perspective that needs to be heard which, if given a voice, could inform the successful progress of a project. They will shut down the person concerned, seeing them as someone who is not committed, and proceed secure in the knowledge that they themselves know what they are doing. When the project begins to fail, they blame all manner of things from the unrealistic timescales involved to the nature of the competition, remaining completely unaware that the issues that have reared their head were predictable and foreseen by the team member who attempted to voice their concerns and who may have already thought of a workaround that never saw the light of day.  To live life more consciously is to challenge what we and others believe and do in the interests of getting to the truth of an issue. This is much more difficult than living unconsciously because living unconsciously gets us off the hook and doesn’t rock the boat. It means we find excuses for why we can’t do something instead of being prepared to acknowledge that we could act but we’re choosing not to, for whatever reason. When life presents us with a difficulty it is often an opportunity to see if we are living in this way; a wake-up call to question whether we are opting out of our own lives through the mind-set we hold. When we begin to live life more consciously we can start to influence what it is that holds us back and change what no longer serves our best interests. It may well be that the difficulties we encounter confront us with precisely what we need to address as individuals in order to progress. The art may be to identify where that lesson lies. Just as a pearl is created directly as the result of an irritant entering into the shell of an oyster, perhaps the seed of our own greatness may lie in what irritates and challenges us. In that sense, what we perceive as being in the way may well be the way since it is only through facing and attending to these difficulties that we gain access to our greater potential.   2012-05-02T20:07:34+00:00 http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/small-changes/ http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/small-changes/#When:11:20 “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step” ~ Old Chinese ProverbWhen we think of change in our lives, we often focus on the big things. Starting a new job or leaving an old one; moving house; beginning a relationship with a new partner or maybe ending one that’s not worked out; having children; emigrating to a different country. The list could go on. Some of these may be positive changes and some may be more difficult but we tend to remember the big shifts in our lives and the major changes. What we don’t tend to give credit to as much is the power and benefit of smaller changes. Sometimes what we really want for ourselves can seem so far away from where we are that we never make a start. The gap seems too wide, the timescale too long and process too difficult so we talk ourselves out of it before we’ve even begun. Instead of seeing the first steps, we only see the last ones and they appear too far out of our reach. Taking a small step can seem somewhat insignificant in the general scheme of things. I remember when I was studying business I was always interested in the Japanese Kaizen approach. This approach is about making small positive improvements in the workplace. Nothing major, but daily observations about what could make things better which are constantly put into action. These continual small improvements yield a compound improvement over time but they are all relatively minor steps in and of themselves. Toyota and all the large Japanese manufacturers put their success down to Kaizen. Small changes are less risky and less involved but they can produce significant change, none the less. Some of the benefits of the Kaizen approach can be lifted into the field of personal development and change. As humans, we are calibrated for balance and equilibrium and if we attempt to step too far out of our comfort zones our own psyches can find reasons to swing the pendulum the other way and pull us back. Making small but gradual change is less frightening but allows us to move in a new direction. Small things can also be useful in getting us back on track when things have taken a dip. Sometimes we can abandon a whole plan because we get knocked back or an aspect of what we were doing hasn’t worked out. It can be tempting then to throw the towel in. At times like that, doing something small in favour of our original plan can help to get things back on track and re-energised. Taking this approach can also be useful in developing some of our personal qualities. If we know for instance that we lack patience, staying with someone who irritates us for five minutes longer than we might otherwise do can help develop a stronger muscle in that arena. If we have a tendency to finish off other people’s sentences, then deliberately committing to allow them to finish at least one in our next conversation can begin to shift our capacity to listen to what someone else is really saying. If we notice our life lacks a bit of lightness then simply choosing to smile at the next stranger can bring a touch of warmth back into our lives. There is a quote by Martin Luther King Jn that I have found useful many a time. He says ‘You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.’ Reminding ourselves of that can allow us to make a start or to keep going with something that might otherwise seem overwhelming. If small and persistent steps in the right direction has worked for many of the Japanese greats, it might well work for us. Why not have a think about something small you can change for yourself and give it a go? 2012-04-12T11:20:26+00:00 http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/daring-to-be-vulnerable/ http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/daring-to-be-vulnerable/#When:09:25 Being vulnerable. It’s not something we tend to aim for or aspire to. We don’t like to feel exposed or at the mercy of others and we’d rather not place ourselves in the line of fire. We like to be able to take care of ourselves and our concerns and go about our daily business feeling protected from the world and from the comments and observations of others. Sometimes we do this to our own detriment, but it feels safe.  Our vulnerabilities are often described as our Achilles Heel – our weak spot. In Greek legend, the sea-nymph, Thetis, tried many ways to make her mortal son, Achilles, immortal, the most famous of which was dipping her baby into the River Styx. Since Thetis had to hold him by the heel, this one spot was left vulnerable and at Troy brought about his death from a poisoned arrow shot by Paris. This myth is the personification of our ability to be brought down by our own weak spots and makes a strong connection between vulnerability and death. At the same time it highlights that our vulnerable spots are also the parts that make us human, a sign of our mortality and an intrinsic part of our nature. When we cannot mention what we may be struggling with, we are attempting to be super-human and it is often our attempts at being super-human that really lead to our downfall, whether that is in our own health and well-being, our relationships, our business, or perhaps even our life itself. Our experience of showing our vulnerabilities though can indeed be painful and it usually feels as though our very survival is at stake. Perhaps we were ridiculed in the past or made to feel inadequate. Perhaps we were particularly vulnerable at some point during our developing years and nobody came to help. Perhaps in an attempt to gain power, and to stop the spotlight falling on us, we have exploited the vulnerabilities of others and are afraid of the same thing happening to us. During childhood, we are not usually in a position to defend ourselves and as such build strategies for our own protection. But as adults, when we are better equipped to handle things, what is it that stops us from exploring our vulnerabilities and acknowledging their presence? Are they too raw, too close to the knuckle?  Do we prefer not to acknowledge our flaws? Do we think we are too old to change? Does our society in its focus on achievement and results not allow for it? I have my own theory, partly based on my own experiences and partly on my observations of working with others. I think that when we begin to show our own weaknesses, and express our personal challenges, we are afraid of falling apart. When we begin to lift the lid on our vulnerabilities we feel the enormity of the chasm inside and it’s a chasm that we are afraid of falling into. It is much easier to cling onto the life I know, even if I’m doing it by my fingertips, than to freefall into another world, especially if that is a world in which I feel alone. Being vulnerable means being at risk to some kind of damage – be it physical, emotional or psychological. It doesn’t mean actually experiencing it – just being at risk of it.  However it also means being open to receiving something from another person and it might just be their kindness or generosity. The trouble is we don’t know which and we won’t find out if we’re not willing to take the risk. Our Achilles heel may well be the route to our own downfall but it is also our connection to the human world if we can see it that way. The very point at which I am open to harm is also the same point at which I am open to love. They are one and the same. If I am so tight and ‘sorted’ that you can’t see my flaws, you will also struggle to see how to love me too. If I am closed to being vulnerable I am closed to being loved. So, where does vulnerability fit into leadership? There is a false notion that strong leaders have no weaknesses. Certainly there is a focus on being positive and successful in leadership work, both of which have their place, but in their book, ‘Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?’ Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones identified four key characteristics of inspirational leaders, based on extensive research they had undertaken. One of those characteristics was selective vulnerability. Selective in the sense that exposing too many weaknesses may undermine your credibility but not showing any at all undermines your ability to connect with and inspire others. They found that leaders who did not show some kind of weakness may have been respected and admired but they were not inspirational. We are all human and the most inspiring leaders are those who experience personal challenges but manage to achieve something despite those. From people like that you gain hope. From people like that you acquire the belief that if they can do it, you can do it. And from people like that you can gain an understanding that it’s OK to be you with all your flaws and imperfections, all your uncertainties and doubts, and all your vulnerabilities. They are the ones that allow their souls to be pierced and in doing so pave the way for others to do the same. If we are to experience the fullness of life we need to take a few risks, despite our pain, and allow our souls to be exposed. Far from being alone we may find that we are in good company. I think one of our greatest fears is not being accepted for who we are and because of that, we don’t even accept our vulnerabilities in ourselves. Not being able to accept our own weaknesses then becomes a weakness in itself because our personal challenges are the portal through which we must pass to become more complete as human beings.  It takes a certain kind of strength to acknowledge your weaknesses and let them be seen and it takes a deeper kind of strength still to turn them around. But if you are willing to go there, the rewards in terms of your own fulfilment and sense of purpose are well worth the price. Yes, you may risk a bit of exposure but you will also risk the possibility of love and human connection. The arrow that you think is headed for your heel may well turn out to be the very one that strikes your soul. And if it strikes your soul it will inevitably reverberate through the soul of someone else.        2012-02-08T09:25:10+00:00 http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/soul-and-spirit-and-the-importance-of-both-at-work/ http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/soul-and-spirit-and-the-importance-of-both-at-work/#When:09:22 It may seem somewhat strange to write about the importance of soul and spirit at work. It may seem even more strange to write about it during times of recession, especially when the prevailing mood suggests you should consider yourself lucky to have a job at all never mind one that you enjoy. However, if we are to consider the real human element of what we do, we need to acknowledge and witness some fundamental needs; needs which hold no relationship whatsoever to the economic climate. You may have a job that pays the bills but if your job lacks spirit and soul then it lacks meaning and meaning is a fundamental issue that transcends economic fluctuations. Human needs do not stop just because the economy takes a dip. Soul To have soul at work means you must find work that connects to your own personal nature and makes you feel alive. Our choice of work flows from who we are – our interests, talents, hopes and values. If we do work in line with our nature, we are not contradicting the person we are or working against own values. During times of redundancy and the frenzied pursuit for the next job we don’t often think about who we are, and if financial matters are pressing we tend to take whatever job might present itself. Whilst that might be necessary to ease the pressure in the short term, adopting it as a long-term strategy means our work remains ungrounded and we become detached from what we do. The soul is about connectedness and intimacy. It is what makes us unique as a person, a human being with deep feelings and the capacity for strong relationships. ‘Deep’ is perhaps the best word to describe the experience of the soul – deep feelings, deep connections, deep projects and deep thoughts. Soul is also about the ups and downs of life – the breathing in and out, winning and losing, beginnings and endings. It is the bitter-sweet rhythm of an engaged life. Soul gets lost when life can’t continue in its own rhythm and soullessness is the ultimate cause of deep dissatisfaction. It is important in work not only to be excited about progressing and earning money but also to be deeply concerned about the value and importance of what we are doing. When you have soul, you are capable of loving your work and the things you create. This doesn’t mean liking every minute or being passionate about what you do but it must feel like the work you want to do. Soul is present when you are present – when you’re not just going through the motions. But it can’t appear if the job doesn’t allow for it or if you are not in a place yourself where you willing or able to bring it to work. Many of the things we do today we do at a distance, never seeing the results of our labour. We worry so much about targets, profit and efficiency that important human issues go unnoticed and the connection between the two hardly registers. Whatever the work, however exalted or menial, a person needs the basic human experiences of intimate connection and love. Without soul, work feels empty. You have to force yourself to do it and you become open to being distracted at every opportunity. You may be physically present but mentally and emotionally you are far away. If you have soul, you also have individuality. If you are not a person of soul you probably think like the crowd and go after the rewards that everyone takes for granted as being desirable. You may think like the culture at large or your religion or your family and be completely unaware of the influence of these groups on you. Part of finding your soul is to wake up to your own uniqueness and go your own way. This is not about being a maverick but rather choosing to live from your heart and recognising that if you can’t live from that place in your current job then perhaps it is time to move on. Spirit Spirit is different from soul but is equally important. It is the upper regions of experience and includes vision, growth, discovery and adventure. Spirit is not the same as spirituality – it is a more fundamental portion of who you are. Ideas, enthusiasm, challenge, and intellectual stimulation are all aspects of spirit. The spirit embodies elements of transcendence and going beyond the status quo. It is uplifting major key music in contrast to the deeper minor keys of the soul. Spirit is what gives you a large view of life and your place in it. It provides you with the opportunity to engage your high ideals and attracts you to the aims and values of an organisation. It provides an opening where your individual contribution can connect to a wider purpose. Whilst the spirit is strong and focused, it can be sacrificed for materialistic purposes. The spirit can be crushed by the weight of forces that give you money to live on but no opportunity to make progress with your ambitions or ideals. The crushing of the spirit is a form of depression at work and can show up in disguised symptoms such as poor performance, anger, cynicism, excessive criticism, whining and ultimately withdrawal from life. The Combination Spirit and soul are both essential and work best when linked to one another.  They are two ends of the same spectrum – one extending upwards towards the future and possibilities; the other pushing downwards to our human history and timeless wisdom. They are two directions, both necessary to each other. The soul grows roots whilst the sprit grows leaves. Spirit moves us into the future while the soul keeps us tied to the past. Both are rich resources – the deep and the transcendent, and give dimension to our quest for a life of purpose. After all, we are not just looking for a job but some activity that will bring meaning to our existence. To have a job where soul and spirit come together creatively means you can pursue your high ideals, know you make a difference, and feel deeply connected to the people and results. This is a truly rewarding place to be where you remain grounded to the circumstances of your life and appreciate the simple pleasures even as you explore the world in pursuit of your dreams. When they come together, you are able to orchestrate the whole range of major and minor key music and allow them to play out in the opus of your own life. Accepting a job that turns out to have neither is like buying a seat for a concert in which the music never starts. Soul and spirit work like partners. Together they offer depth and transcendence, memory and hope, intimacy and universality. They engage the whole person in creating work that satisfies and offers a sense of meaning. These two dimensions make for a complete experience of work and in the end give your life the great dimensions it needs to fulfil you as a person. But if you are afraid of life’s potential and hide away, or if you freeze your spirit in some form of ideology or belief system, you will have no vibrant soul and spirit to bring to your work. Both spirit and soul have to be alive or else one will suffer from wounds to the other. When people leave employment as a result of despondency rather than opportunity, it is usually as the result of damage to one or other, if not to both. The Impact on Leadership Leadership and engagement are two topics that are much discussed in the HR and management community. Catering for both aspects of spirit and soul are absolutely essential if the human dimension of work is to be fully connected. These are not fluffy new-age notions but timeless and fundamental elements of what it means to be human, and in particular what it means to be human at work.  It is the role of organisational leaders to build both aspects of a business – the visionary and the deeply connected and it is the role of each and every one of us as leaders of our own lives to find those aspects in ourselves if we are to live a life of meaning. 2011-12-07T09:22:14+00:00 http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/give-yourself-or-someone-else-a-christmas-present-that-will-make-a-positive/ http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/give-yourself-or-someone-else-a-christmas-present-that-will-make-a-positive/#When:12:43 Fed up of trawling round the shops looking to buy presents for people that they don’t really need?  If so, why not buy a workshop for someone that will make a positive difference to their lives. Alternatively you can pay for a workshop and leave the choice up to them. I will be running twelve one-day workshops over the course of 2012. Please get in touch for further details. 2011-11-21T12:43:13+00:00 http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/coaching-for-personal-leadership-is-now-available-to-individuals-on-a-/ http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/coaching-for-personal-leadership-is-now-available-to-individuals-on-a-/#When:16:05 This is for anyone wishing to invest in themselves to facilitate and enhance their own personal development. Personal leadership coaching is coaching that assists you in leading your own life. It includes any area that may be proving to be personally challenging and where you wish to change the likely trajectory of your life course. These areas may be related to self-esteem and confidence; the capacity to manage your own personal well-being, especially stress and pressure; handling conflict and challenges; managing your personal, family or work-based relationships; career; finding meaning and purpose in your life; or helping you navigate through transitional periods of change.  Coaching for personal leadership works very much on the basis that we are co-creators of our own existence and whilst there are many areas of life that we cannot change, there are also areas that we can. The areas that we can change are very much influenced by the person we have become through our past experiences and orientation to life, and the person we continue to be through our ongoing behaviours and patterns of action. Whilst these aspects are lodged at a deep level within our minds and bodies, they can be changed where they no longer serve our best interests. This requires becoming consciously aware of our ways of operating and adopting practices that shift our capacity to act in the world.  What you can expect In personal leadership coaching, I work with you to take stock of your current circumstances. Together we work to change your orientation to life away from something that may be inhibiting your own well-being, effectiveness and satisfaction towards one that will assist you in living a more authentic and fulfilled life. In order to do this, I work very much with your own personal challenges and issues. In assisting you to make positive changes in your life I offer a mix of different transformational therapies. These include more conscious living, hypnotherapy, NLP, Time-Line Therapy™, personal change work, meditation and relaxation techniques, body practices and life practices. I work very much with areas that help nurture your spirit and soul as well as keeping you grounded and rooted in responsible living. All of these practices help to facilitate your psychological and emotional well-being and allow you to access areas of your potential that may otherwise have remained hidden or dormant. This work does require addressing some tough issues, but we work together in the interests of creating a more empowered sense of self, and one that allows you to remain true to your own needs and desires whilst simultaneously building effective relationships with others and society at large. 2011-11-07T16:05:32+00:00 http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/conversations-without-a-purpose/ http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/conversations-without-a-purpose/#When:14:24 Now running ‘Conversations Without A Purpose’. These sessions are available for anyone who would like someone to talk to outside of their normal circle of friends/ family and contacts. They are an opportunity to off-load and be listened to and to have someone be fully present to you for an hour. These are not coached sessions or therapy sessions, just a conversation during which you can talk about anything you like. Can be booked as a one-off or a series, whichever you prefer. Please see the ‘one-to-one’ page on the website for further details. News 2011-10-31T14:24:47+00:00 http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/when-life-just-doesnt-go-our-way/ http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/when-life-just-doesnt-go-our-way/#When:13:08 There are times in life when things just don’t go the way we had hoped or planned. Perhaps a conversation we were having with someone at work or home didn’t go how we thought it might. Perhaps we return from a holiday to find the fridge has gone bust and the TV isn’t working or perhaps we get news of someone we care about becoming ill. In life we all encounter unexpected challenges and twists we had not anticipated. Despite our best efforts we learn in painful ways that we are not after all the Masters of the Universe.  In my early twenties I went over to Long Island, New York to stay with a great-aunt of mine. Amongst other things she gave me a bookmark she had designed and on the back she’d written a prayer composed by Reinhold Niebuhr: ‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference’. Both the bookmark and the words have stayed with me since then.  The prayer that Niebuhr composed has been used by recovery associations but it is also a useful philosophy for life. Increasingly much of the coaching work I do is around helping people through times of transition. This may be working with leaders who are faced with providing direction to others during times of uncertainty and rapid change or working with people on a more personal basis who are attempting to lead their own lives and are perhaps faced with more individual challenges. Applying Niebuhr’s prayer to our own situations and lives can help in working through the difficulties of transition.  Firstly, in asking for the serenity to accept the things that cannot be changed this presents the realisation that there in fact are some things that cannot be changed. In our world of modern technology, huge scientific advances and rapid response, we get lured into thinking that everything can be controlled and everything can be fixed. It can’t. For instance we cannot control the seasons, we cannot make a day longer than 24 hours, and despite our most optimistic attempts to have a barbeque when the sun comes out there’s nothing we can do to when the heavens decide to open and it pours with rain. These may seem obvious but sometimes the givens of life are very much overlooked. Attempting to change things that cannot be changed leads to much frustration and heartache. It also means we fail to see that a larger force is often at play, which would take us to a different place if we could surrender to it. It can also mean that we can miss out on the mystery of life because we are too intent on having things go our way. Far from it being a depressing notion, accepting that some things cannot be changed can bring about a certain amount of peace and freedom. Then we have the request for courage to change the things we can change. Often because we are focusing on the things that cannot be changed we are blind to the things that can be changed. Furthermore, there are often things we can influence even if we cannot completely change them. To change what can be changed however does require courage. Too often we are inclined to say ‘There’s nothing I can do about that’ when actually there’s everything we can do to about it. This requires growing up. This requires acknowledging and accepting responsibility to do something when we’d really rather not. It is much easier to pretend that we can’t do something than to acknowledge that we can because then we have to take some kind of action instead of just complaining. This can be tough because it exposes us to our insecurities and fears which really lie behind the reasons why we don’t act when we could. It puts us up against ourselves. But moving forward does not just require courage. It also requires developing a compassion towards ourselves and those around us and a commitment to strive for something better. Finally, the prayer requests the wisdom to know the difference between what can and cannot be changed. This is the tricky bit because it is not always obvious. Whilst wisdom is gained through age and experience it also resides in intuition and following our intuition is frowned upon in a world that is built on logic and reason. It also means separating out what is our business, what is someone else’s business and what is God’s business, or the Universe’s business, or whatever larger force you may believe in. For example, if you move house and have a house-warming party, whether or not you choose to invite me is your business. If you do invite me, whether or not I choose to accept and come along is my business. Assuming you do invite me and I do attend, the fact that I might meet someone there who I haven’t seen for 20 years, and who I didn’t know you knew and you didn’t know I knew, is the Universe’s business. Far too often in life we are tied up in attempting to fix someone else’s business, or the Universe’s business, and don’t attend to our own business. If we do begin to attend to our own business this means we focus on the only person we can ever change and that can be a lifelong challenge. It means changing what can be changed and surrendering to the rest. It means setting our sails but being open to where the wind might take us. It means having some direction in our lives but allowing larger forces to play a part and trusting where that might take us.  As Joseph Campbell says: ‘We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us’. So when life doesn’t go our way perhaps we need to be open instead to going the way of life. Who knows, it may eventually take us to a better destination than the one we had planned.  2011-10-20T13:08:55+00:00 http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/embracing-our-shadow-side/ http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/embracing-our-shadow-side/#When:12:40 Nature is full of opposites: night and day; light and dark; sea and land; winter and summer; male and female, to name but a few. Eastern philosophy promotes Yin and Yang – two opposite and complementary natural energies that combine to produce a whole. In this world of advanced technology and heavily constructed cities, we can lose sight of the fact that we, too, are part of nature. We are not separate beings from the rest of the world. What exists in nature exists in us. In fact it is purely humans who have divided the cosmos into opposites and how else could it have occurred to us to do it unless we had the prototype of such a division within ourselves. This is an interesting concept when it comes to personal development and transformation because generally speaking we prefer not to think about that. Instead we prefer to classify events and people as good or bad, for us or against us, in or out. From early childhood, we are brought up with the ‘good-‘uns’ and the ‘bad-uns’, cops and robbers, Cowboys and Indians, and Beauty and the Beast. In other words, we are one or the other but not usually both. As human beings, however, we all have light and dark within us, good and bad, forces that are healthy and constructive and forces that can destroy and harm. We are a conglomerate of opposites, some of which we recognise and accept and some of which we don’t. Many of the unacceptable aspects of ourselves are hidden from us. Carl Jung first used the term ‘shadow’ to describe the repressed or denied part of the Self; the aspects we split off and dissociate from and the parts of ourselves we are afraid to show. As infants, we are born expressing the full breadth of our human nature, without editing or censoring. As we grow up, however, we learn that certain slices of our nature are unacceptable to the people around us. Maybe we are shamed for crying or told to be quiet for asking too many difficult questions. Perhaps we are ridiculed for wanting affection or attacked for being in the way. We develop coping strategies for whatever happens to us in childhood and adolescence by denying aspects of ourselves, building armour and merging with whatever we need to do to protect ourselves. This serves the purpose of allowing us to survive whether on a physical, emotional or psychological level but these coping strategies become hardwired and carried through into adulthood where they may no longer serve us. However, even if we are given everything we could hope for as children that does not necessarily mean we go on to function well as adults since we may carry into adulthood expectations of entitlement, a feeling that everything should go our way, and an incapacity and unwillingness to deal with life’s difficulties. Either way, we emerge into adulthood as a combination of positives and negatives, some of which are on the surface and some of which are beneath the veil of consciousness and in the realm of the shadow. If we can begin to see our own shadow side, there is a chance that the process of achieving wholeness can begin. But if the shadow is beyond our awareness, how can we begin to recognise it? Furthermore, do we even want to see it and what will we do with it once shown? Do we have the courage to face it and address it and ultimately overcome and integrate it? This challenge is one that sits deep in the human psyche. It is the subject of many books and films which originate from the human imagination and archetypical images. Lord Voldemort is such a challenge and threat to Harry Potter precisely because he is a part of him. In Star Wars, Darth Vader is the embodiment of power misused, The ‘dark side’ proves to be the father of the hero, Luke Skywalker, and as such a force that also resides within himself. The battle played out on the screen of such films is the battle of the human psyche. It is the struggle of human goodness against its own shadow. It is not a fight that exists between one person and another but a battle between two sides of the same person. This is so difficult for our egos to accept that we project it onto the outside word. However, goodness exists in the world because it exists in us. Cruelty also exists in the world for the same reason. We can deny it, repress it and disown it. Or we can learn to face it, in all its ugliness and challenges, and seek to integrate it. Many spiritual practices and religions that encourage ‘rising above’ our baser instincts only serve to disinherit and disown the shadow. Our wholeness and greatness is not reached by dissociating from our wild natures, but by accepting them as present, understanding what they can teach us about ourselves, and finding a way of integrating them. Nothing can be healed or resolved through avoidance or denial. Our task is not to attend to the forces ‘out there’ but to recognise that our work lies in attending to our own internal battles. The Shadow is the portal through which we must pass to become whole human beings. Paradoxically, when we begin to undertake that task, our ability to positively impact the world around us begins to grow. If you are interested in learning more about the Shadow, I will be launching a workshop in January called ‘The Shadow of the Psyche’ which is about facing our challenges as a route to wholeness. If you are a therapist or healer working with others this will be of particular interest. If you are curious about how you can gain access to your own shadow, this workshop will reveal some of the ways in which our shadow is cast and how we can begin the difficult and challenging task of blending the two sides of our own nature. 2011-09-07T12:40:08+00:00 http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/making-sense-of-our-emotions/ http://www.onelife2live.co.uk/blog/about/making-sense-of-our-emotions/#When:11:20 The dichotomy between rational thinking and emotional behaviour has always been a key element of Western philosophical history. The Western tradition has historically aligned itself to the notion of Dualism, which separates out the mind from the body and is primarily based on the thinking of Descartes. Extreme Dualism sees emotional behaviour as the complete antithesis of rational behaviour. Modern neuroscience however suggests that truly rational behaviour is not possible without emotion. Moreover, there are increasing amounts of experimental and clinical data pointing to the view that emotions and feelings are actually necessary for rational behaviour. In turn, rationality has not historically been naturally applied to emotions. We do not attempt to interpret our emotions and make sense of them and from there manage their manifestation in a constructive way. We prefer to keep our rational and emotional realms separate.  Built on the Western tradition of Duality is an educational system which concentrates solely on the development of intellectual and practical skills, both functions of the rational brain. Whilst increasing efforts are made to raise academic standards, emotional education remains non-existent in the national curriculum. Our ability to navigate our emotions and to manage them intelligently is largely left to chance. The result is a society that rewards academic attainment whilst simultaneously producing emotional illiteracy. Alongside this are increasing trends of aggression and depression, the breakdown of relationships and families, and the highest levels of dependency, addiction, social problems and mental illness that have ever existed. We do not learn about our emotions and we do not know how to navigate the territory they take us into. The consequential costs of this at both an individual and collective level are high. Our emotions serve a critical role in guiding our behaviour and actions but we tend to be uneducated in translating their purpose. Anger, for instance, can tell us what it is we care about. It can also be a warning that we may not be managing our personal boundaries well or we may be failing to recognise and articulate our own needs against the needs and actions of others.  Due to the emotional realm remaining unrecognised as a valid area of learning and education, two things tend to happen. Firstly, we suppress or deny our emotions and feelings and remain unaware of what they are trying to tell us. Secondly, and often due to suppressing them, they eventually erupt and we are in their grip. At this point, all rational behaviour goes out of the window and we are caught in an uncontrollable torrent. We are not taught how to recognise and be guided by our emotions and we are not taught how to manage them intelligently. Either we act without their guidance and ignore them altogether or we act whilst in their grip. We do not find the middle road and use our emotions intelligently. A major consequence of this is that our decision-making abilities and our capacity to navigate life become compromised. In his book ‘Descartes’ Error’, Antonio Damasio describes the case of a patient called Elliot. Elliot was a young man of high IQ who underwent a major change in his personality after developing, and then having brain surgery to remove, a brain tumour. As a result of this, he suffered damage to the prefrontal areas of his brain. One of the most dramatic consequences of this was that Elliot lost his emotions, or more accurately he lost his feelings which were his subjective experience of his emotions. What then emerged was that Elliot could no longer make rational decisions. He could discuss the pros and cons of various scenarios, so his rational ability and IQ were intact, but he could no longer choose between them. Without emotions, he could not weigh up the various options, and could not decide on appropriate action. The separation of logic from emotion not only fails to recognise that they are integral systems but it tends to relegate emotional experience and elevate intellectual experience. This not only diminishes the experience of what it means to be human but it is detrimental to our ability to be fulfilled. Life is meant to be lived and experienced, not just analysed and observed. In his brilliant book on Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman states that it is emotional intelligence, not intellectual intelligence, that is the governing factor in whether or not we live happy and productive lives and it underpins our ability to handle our personal and professional relationships which are the cornerstone of well-being and community. The emphasis on intellectual intelligence produces some brilliant minds who cannot function easily in the social and emotional worlds. These are the highly skilled doctors who have an abrupt and dismissive bedside manner, the lawyers who can deliver a convincing court case but cannot empathise or build relationships with their clients, and the academics who live in hermetically sealed environments who are esteemed for their knowledge and intellect but cannot handle emotional challenges in their professional or personal lives. In the organisational and business world these are the leaders and managers whose role in redundancy ends once the announcement is made, conveniently preferring to pass it over as ‘one for HR’, and who declare a culture of openness and engagement whilst creating an environment of fear and blame. In the family and social arena, it leads to superficial or fraught relationships where issues such as vulnerability, fear, anger and personal concerns are never properly discussed or shared. Things are hinted at but remain unsaid and unexplored. At the same time joy, compassion and the ability to feel and foster deep connection are seriously compromised. If we are to address the significant deficits in our educational, professional and personal lives, a new paradigm needs to emerge which recognises the importance and value of emotional education alongside intellectual and practical education. Instead of ignoring our emotions and failing to integrate them, we need to treat them as a source of wisdom and guidance. We need to blend our ability to reason and rationalise with our capacity to feel. If we are to live lives of meaning and fulfilment, and embrace the experience of what is it to be truly human, we must learn to make sense of our emotions, develop the skills to navigate their territory, and trust the intelligence that naturally resides in our emotional realm. 2011-07-14T11:20:22+00:00