I have been having a major clean-out of my house. These days, I live in a small inner-city house. After living in a big home for a long time, there were numerous clean-ups to get to the point of fitting into the little house. Three years have passed and it seemed time to reassess what was genuinely useful or beautifying and what was clutter. Continue reading “End of Year Clean-Out”
Kindness: Naomi Shihab Nye – Video
The Universal Language of Happiness
One morning, I was in my front garden, digging around and trying to bring life and order back to the lovely, old garden of the small, inner-city 1930’s cottage I had recently moved into. An elderly Greek lady, who I recognized from several houses away, shuffled across the road in my direction. With kind, shining eyes she started to speak. Her accent was thick but I could get the gist of what she was saying, particularly because every second word was either God or happy. She, by the way, was the embodiment of happiness. Continue reading “The Universal Language of Happiness”
Making Mistakes
If we find it difficult to admit to mistakes, it is often because we have a harsh inner critic. Admitting to any mistake will inevitably mean heavy recrimination. Sigmund Freud called the inner critic, the superego. It monitors the behaviour of the individual. For numerous reasons, many people end up with very brutal and unforgiving superegos. And so, what choice does such a person have but to avoid admitting mistakes in order to avoid harsh treatment? Many of these same people will project those mistakes onto innocent others in their lives. I am sure it has happened to you that the very thing someone else is and you are not, is suddenly being thrust upon you as your own character trait. And more, there is no reasoning with the person who seems incapable of looking at themselves rationally. Continue reading “Making Mistakes”
Healing Repressions
Major fears, sadness, and anger tend to be repressed because they are unpleasant to face. We do not know how to deal with them. Of course, society demands restraint. We obviously cannot rant and rave to every person we feel annoyed with. We cannot go around angrily blaming every poor soul that crosses our path. We cannot crumble into a bumbling heap of fear whenever we are challenged or anxious. We cannot crawl into a little ball of despair and refuse to face the world because we are disheartened and sad. Hopefully, as a child, we learned some restraint and level-headedness. However, we transfer these necessary learned responses into indiscriminate repression. Continue reading “Healing Repressions”