Author: admin

One of the most fascinating things when talking to someone about their life is hearing about how they arrived at where they are today. By chance or intention, we find ourselves at the end of millions upon millions of major and minor choices.

Often, only from the outside, can one see the power, intention and motivation in the choices we made. On closer examination, we may see themes or patterns in the tapestry of our life, sometimes operating from deep within our subconscious. Some of the patterns, often in place since childhood, may still be active and playing themselves out today in our life.

So why did he turn left and not right?

Asking a person to remember why they made a particular choice many years after the fact is often not that simple. With the passing of time accuracy of memory can be tested. So what makes us choose the things we choose and would it be helpful to understand the process by which we come to decide which road to take? How many people look back with regret and remorse at the decisions they made, stating how differently they would have chosen given the chance again. As we all know we can’t change the past but we can change the way that we relate to it. Maybe the best way to relate to the past is to learn from it and move forward, clearer to make the most beneficial choices.

There seem to be many reasons why we desire and choose what we do. It would be understandable to assume that choice is the next step after desire, but that said, why do we desire what we desire and what are the criteria for choice? Both desire and choice may need greater scrutiny to be able to answer these questions.

First comes the desire, or does it?

Are we free to desire anything, or are we limited by other parameters? Some people were raised being told that they can “Go for whatever they want,” while others are told “Be realistic, not just anyone can be the president!” So you see, both desire and choice may have hidden trip wires, waiting to catch us up at any moment. Totally individual, our framework for desire and choice is as unique as we are. On many occasions I have tried to encourage someone to:- go for that job/relationship/challenge, citing how totally perfect and completely qualified they are for it.  But for some reason, maybe not even known to themselves, they find enough evidence to justify why they would not stand a chance of even getting an interview/date/call back. So you can see by their comment that they have already decided that its way out of their grasp. If only we could take a close look at our own set of rules and guidelines pertaining to desire and choice. We may discover some useful insight, not only understanding more about how we came to end up here but how we could move forward in life with a greater sense of satisfaction and fulfillment.

Babies and young children have a very limited range of choice within their command. As they grow and develop they are either given more choice or they reach out and take it. How we expand our repertoire of choice largely depends on the unconscious stance we adopt to get our needs met. Even though both aspects reside in each of us, most will have the tendency to lean one way more than another. I’m referring to the seesaw of “Pleasers and Controllers”, the two opposing stances people can take if they should find themselves short of what they need or desire. A pleaser seeks approval, needing to know what another desires before they choose their next step, enabling them to make the correct step towards the acceptance they so desperately need.

“Hey Phil, do you want to go eat Indian or Italian?”

“Oh I don’t mind, what would you prefer?”

If a pleaser presents a plate with two different biscuits, the pleaser will always ask which biscuit the other person prefers and then take the other. Obviously there is nothing wrong with giving to another before yourself, giving the one you love your last chocolate is a sweet thing (haha) but giving is a action free of agenda. As the saying goes “Free to give and not to count the cost.”  Pleasing looks very much like giving but has a hidden agenda stuck to the gift. If the agenda is to please another, there is much more going on under the surface than there is in the conscious exchange. I have often felt the weight of unspoken agenda when receiving something from another, knowing at some point this so called gift will come back to haunt me.

The controller on the other hand, would not think twice and will take the one they want and give away the other. Now similarly there is nothing wrong with control, just who and what are you trying to control. Control over yourself and your world is your Human Right.  Here I define the word “Controller” as someone who tries to control another for personal gain, not the wellbeing of the one they are interacting with. Controllers always try to take charge, grasping control with both hands. If not complied with they may withhold in an attempt to force compliance. Rather than accept and show compliance themselves controllers would prefer to go without or even exclude themselves. This behavior, often unconscious, is a way to make you feel bad for denying them what they wanted (Control). This classic adolescent stance I often refer to as the controller trying to “guilt you” A form of coercive behavior.

So as we start to question choice and desire we can see that it’s not as simple as it seems.  “When they know what you want and desire,” he said, “Then they know how to control and manipulate you.” The words of a man who had experienced being controlled as a child through punishment and reward and who knew he could be controlled by having what he desired taken away as a punishment. He learnt to disengage or hide from view what he desired so they could not use it as a way to punish him. For people controlled in this way, there are side effects. Desire is not only hidden from the view of others, but can also be hidden from self. It’s often less painful to disengage from our desires, in the presence of those waiting to use them against us or those we fear will. The programming can be so hard wired that even years later, supposedly broken away from parental controls, we may still have that programming in place, ready to spring into action at the slightest “would you like…?”

So for a controller choice is heaven and for a pleaser it’s hell. I remember screaming in the back of my parent’s car “PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME CHOOSE”. At the time I could not have told you why it was so devastating to choose, I was only being asked to choose which suit they were going to buy for me but the feeling was all consuming and my scream made it sound life threatening. Years later it became crystal clear. How could I have chosen? I was a pleaser. The correct answer for a pleaser always sits with the other person and our compliance guarantees approval and therefore getting our needs met. So for a pleaser control is nothing short of torture.

If you want to give a pleaser the total choice you have to preempt the offer by saying: “Darling I will still love and support you whatever decision you make about university”. A controller is more concerned about having control than reaching the goal. The child being guided by the hand to the swings pulls away from mummy, exerting control, showing whose boss. Control rather than playing on the swings being more important for that child.

Every decision that we make is a stitch in the tapestry of life and we don’t often realise their importance or relevance in the bigger picture. Decisions are made for many reasons, with some like driving a car being automatically taken without a second thought. Understandably, it might feel like an overwhelming task to stop and question our choices, but there is probably a good argument for at least trying to start.

Simply put we decide or choose either because “We want” or because “We Fear” No wonder we get tripped up when people say; “Well what are you complaining about you chose…! Maybe choice does not always equate to what we want. So whether you feel that you lean more towards being a pleaser than a controller the acid test is still the same. Pure choice is for personal gain or benefit only It has no intended impact on anyone else. Pure choices do not need to be known by anyone else. Polluted choices are taken based on the impact it will have on the way that another views or relates to you. So the question is, do you choose because you desire or do you choose because you need to affect the relationship that you have with another? Both motivations are valid but it’s important that you can differentiate between the two.

With the awareness of the motivation and intention behind your choices you may find that what you choose could change drastically or at least you will be more conscious of what and why you chose. So maybe the next time you are faced with a choice, stop, take a breath and ask yourself:   “Why am I choosing this?”

There seems to be some very profound and important information missing from our handbook on life. For whatever reason, understanding has been overlooked or omitted of one imperative element that we all need to learn about for a balanced and healthy life. By example and education, much has been passed down from one generation to the next. However, throughout the generations some vital information has been left somewhere on the cutting room floor of this amazing movie called life.

The area I’m addressing is our emotional world and its healthy expression. Without emotional health life can be, and is, experienced by many to be disjointed to say the least.

Being highly potent and potentially fatal, I find it amazing that this learning has been left out of our education. It seems we have all been left to muddle our way through. With much trial and tribulation we strive to understand, in the same way that those who raised were left by those who raised to sort it out themselves.

Many aspects of life are cultivated, supported and often highly acclaimed; while education about emotions is not even deemed important enough to be given a mention. Intellectual and physical prowess has always been greatly hailed, with the scholar returning from university with a first, or the athlete bringing home a gold medal. But there is much more to who we are!

Although, in recent times, some have started to touch upon what they refer to as Emotional Intelligence, it is being viewed through the eyes of intellect. They say Emotional Intelligence is the ability to identify and manage our emotions and apply them. This is a very intellectual, cognitive approach and is as far from the nature and need of our Emotional self, as the sun is from the earth.

So let’s dispel some accepted wisdom:

1. There is no such thing as negative emotions; only negative ways to express them. So let’s not blame the emotion. In the appropriate responsible context every feeling and emotion has its place.
2. We don’t need to rise above our emotions; they are an expression of a part of us. “Mummy I’m sad” is as important and valuable to voice and be heard as “Mummy I need a wee”
3. Saying that emotions don’t make sense, is like trying to measure steam with a ruler. Sense is a way of defining and understanding logic. If you want to understand, you need to understand the language of emotion.
4. You cannot be too sensitive. You are as sensitive as you are. More often than not when faced with such criticism, people are actually saying, “I don’t know how to deal with you or relate to what you’re feeling” or else they are just trying to control you.
5. No one else can equate what and how much you should feel regarding any situation, like being told “you really should be over that by now.”
6. You cannot help what you feel; it’s just what you feel.

If someone has control or influence over you and tries to stop you feeling what you’re feeling, it won’t actually work. All that will happen is that the external expression is silenced but the internal feeling and emotion sits within and with no ability to express leads to untold problems, with the damage being potentially fatal.

However different our upbringing, most were taught by default how not to feel, rather than how to feel and express in a healthy way. By the age of five or six years old we knew that it was not OK to feel angry, sad or frightened. So in order to be loved and approved of we learnt to suppress and there began the slippery slope. Over time we learnt which feelings were acceptable and which were most definitely not.  Preverbal, children give voice to feelings and emotions and their expressions are met with mixed reception. Ironically the more we are taught to express through the spoken word, the less permission there seems to be to express through the language of emotion.

There are several reasons why another would want to control our emotional world. Emotions are harder to control than intellect. Intellect can be structured and filed into good, bad, right and wrong, and once configured we control ourselves based on their criteria, with guilt often being the weapon of choice. Emotion is such a powerful force and a person championed by their emotions is unstoppable. If feeling emotion was encouraged and cultivated from an early age we would probably never hear of crimes of passion or the damage caused by someone flying into a blind rage or worse.

In acoustics there is a phenomenon called sympathetic resonance. Take two tuning forks of the same frequency and strike one to make it sound, if in close enough proximity the other fork will also start to sound. This same phenomenon happens with emotion. The screams of a child can resonate with the suppressed feelings within another, waking up the buried emotions in the adult. Lacking understanding and awareness of what the adult is feeling, they try to control the child’s emotional expression, in an unconscious attempt to keep their own emotions suppressed and buried. Each emotionally suppressed child grows up to unconsciously suppress the next generation, perpetuating the cycle of abuse.

As we start to unveil our history we see the damage caused by those who knew no better: “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”, a phrase heard by many from parents, including myself. Even as the five year old I remember thinking that she already had, which was why I was crying. In order though to be loved and accepted I just sucked it up and wiped away the tears. Unfortunately these feelings don’t go away but literally get swallowed up, locked inside, along with all the other feelings that were judged, criticised and forbidden as a child.

If only we understood the impact of suppressing our own or another’s emotional expression. Eventually we get to a point where our level of suppression becomes too great to hold and there is major damage that is, in some cases, fatal. Imagine if we could press the reset button on life and start again from a place where all parts of us were equally honoured and expressed?

In over thirty years of helping people I can honestly say that no one has ever died from having a feeling but I believe many have died from suppressing them. Our natural emotional vocabulary is perfect in its unhampered state, with an emotion perfectly formed to match every situation that may occur. Unfortunately judgement and interference has left us scared and damaged and we have to start to unlearn and untangle the criticism directed to our emotional self, a process that takes large servings of self-love and acceptance.

From a young age I explored many avenues to find answers regarding my mental, emotional, physical and even spiritual well-being. Knocking on many doors, I sought help from a wide range of people offering varied approaches. While others took a more traditional route, it was my nature to look outside of the main stream, to find solutions to life’s many quandaries.

On one of these numerous occasions, I found myself being asked a seemingly simple question.

“So Phil how do you feel?”

“Well a part of me feels……………” After giving my answer I realised that it was only part of how I felt.

“On the other hand another part of me feels…………” Once again this comment was true but far from the complete picture.

“There again another part does not care and I’m not sure that I even want to be here.”

“Yes Phil but how do YOU feel?” I was asked again.

I had no definitive answer and at that point realised this approach was not for me. At the end of the session I left the room, angry that I had not been heard.

When I got home, I began pondering the experience that I had just had. Curious about what I had said in the session, I started to map out those different expressions and feelings on paper. As I wrote, even more aspects of me seemed to show up, quite different from the one before but easily identifiable as a fundamental part of who I had become.

Some weeks later while having coffee with a friend, I started to share my new findings and theory. It seemed to me that we are made up of many aspects, many facets. In the past I would often find myself in the midst of an internal battle, stuck between opposing feelings, opinions or desires concerning the same situation, all vying for acceptance and to be my chosen plan of action, now I knew why.

It brought to mind the lyrics of a song I had penned as a fifteen year old. Words that tried to give voice to the torment that the adolescent who had no other way to express.

“Please will the real Mr Me please stand up.

Could it possibly be that both of you are me.

I wonder who I am and where I’m to be found.

I feel I’m in the middle, of a somewhat confused land.”

 

Grabbing a paper napkin and pen I started to map out and label each of these aspects best I could.

“Carl Jung says the same thing” my friend said, when I had almost finished, “He calls them sub-personalities”. To me this title sounded too theoretical, too clinical. From what I had experienced these were in fact real parts of me, not some theoretical model. Continuing to draw out my map I tried to separate my findings from her comparison, by pointing out that there was in fact seven parts of me. At this point my friend confirmed that Jung had stated the same. Her comparison was now starting to help me, allowing me to feel that maybe my insights were not so crazy as I had thought and hearing this helped validate my experience.

With this newfound awareness, I was able to start to learn more about myself. Awareness and acceptance seem to go hand in hand and the more I was aware, the more I had to cultivate acceptance. Conversely the more acceptance I had the easier it became to take a closer look at myself and not fear what I may find. Inviting each part that surfaced, to find a voice and a healthy integrated place in my life. I came to learn that there were some threads that ran throughout all aspects of self while others were unique to a particular aspect. All needing acknowledgement and acceptance but not all needed external expression.

When sharing this idea with my clients I often create an image of a boardroom. Seven seats around a big table and I invite all parts of who I’m supporting to turn up and take their seat, giving each an opportunity to openly voice how they feel. Some say that they think about this stuff a lot, so what good would it do to say it out loud?  It might seem strange, but only when we actually hear ourselves say it, does the true impact get received by all other aspects of self.

I realise now years later that maybe in a “Healthy Balanced Human Being” there may be no separate aspects of self, all are one and one is all. They seamlessly transition from one aspect of themselves to another. For many though, trauma of one sort or another, emotional or physical, can cause a person to freeze and fracture. Each part starts to become isolated, no longer fluid. Like the ice cube in the glass of water, part but not integrated. One of the life skills needed for a trauma survivor before finding this way to integrate, seems to be making sure that the appropriate aspect is in the driving seat depending on the particular journey of life one is taking. How often have you been faced with a person having a temper tantrum more fitting for a two year old that the forty two year old facing you? Or the sulking rebellious teenager talking through your middle aged colleague? Prime examples where the wrong aspect is in the driver’s seat.

Many people over the years told me they had a happy childhood without trauma, but the issues they bring seem to tell a very different story. When we look back from the adult we are now, many things don’t seem that traumatic but for the young child that we were the perspective can be very different.

As a young child I often came face to face with vicious dogs and was always visibly frightened. I would be told not to be frightened that it won’t hurt you. It was easy for them to say that, way up there at a safe distance, but from down here with this dog baring his teeth right into my face, it was a very different story.

In starting to dialogue with each part of myself I realised many things. When out walking with a bunch of children you can only go as fast as the smallest child. In the same way the “inner child” needs to be taken care of first. Many people try to find someone else to look after that “inner child” but this can never be a healthy solution. I once heard a mother say “I have five children, unfortunately one of them happens to be my husband”. For whatever reason her husband never got the parenting he needed to allow him to grow up integrated. So like many he adopted his wife as his mother and for some, it is easier to be his mother than just his wife. Although a woman is more than capable to be both mother and wife it’s never good to be both to the same person.

When one is able to define, name and invite each aspect to be included, integration can begin.  Voicing their feelings, needs, desires and aspirations allows each to be heard and given the opportunity to unite. The process of resolving and healing the pain and trauma of the past allows each ice cube to slowly melt and become integrated into the whole.

If we could learn to live harmoniously and intergrated on the inside we might find it easier to help facilitate those around us.

How can we hope for world peace, when there is a lack of peace within?

I sometimes wonder if it would be useful to have a stick stand in my office, as I’m always asking people to take the stick they beat themselves with and park it in the corner, while we chat. I’m amazed how many of us when questioned admit to owning such a stick.

I’m even starting to wonder if I should set up a storage facility for “Self Beating Sticks” or SBS’s, as I prefer to call them, offering people some respite from those painful weapons.

These metaphorical sticks that some use from time to time and others have as constant companions, seem to be hard wired into our psyche. If only one could see how much better life would be without them, as the damage caused by these sticks can go unnoticed for a lifetime.

Possibly more detrimental than classic self-harm, the use of an SBS leaves no external signs to flag up concern from the outside world. The use of the stick for some is almost second nature, as if it is an integral part of their being rather than a learnt response which it actually is.

“I know I’ve brought this on myself”, I heard someone say. It was not the light bulb moment of realisation that I had hoped for, but rather a punishing swipe of the SBS crashing down upon his back. By the way he continued to talk I could see that he was totally unaware of what he had just done, an unconscious self-beating, that based on his lack of reaction, appeared to be common place in his life.

“Why not try something new and leave your stick with me when you go,” I mentioned. “Notice how different life can be when you have disarmed your ability to beat yourself up, but be careful and see how long it takes before a part of you sneaks back and grabs it out of storage”.

You may have experienced others beating you in life with their words, comments or even physically but SBS’s are used solely for self-flagellation.

It is so much harder to protect yourself when the antagonist is within.

The execution is instantaneous with no time for appeal or pardon. Even the kindest and gentlest of people can habour a SBS secretly waiting to be used whenever or wherever necessary.

In real terms a SBS is as useful and productive as a chocolate hot water bottle on a cold winters night, but even so, us humans still seem to use them on a regular basis.

It’s amazing to watch how quickly in conversation someone will whip out their SBS and beat themselves while still being able to end the sentence that triggered the reaction.

When someone is in full flight of self-flagellation it takes precision to safely intervene, like a bird stealing food from another’s mouth mid flight.

Asking people to just stop punishing themselves may have no impact. They might have had a lifetime of punishing self-judgement and need to be gently guided out of this way of being. The behaviour may be so woven into the fabric of their world they cannot comprehend what life would be like without it.

As a result we may need to make some preliminary adjustments in order to gain access and disarm the SBS.

Asking if they would like to stop beating themselves, even though they may think deep down that it’s not possible, is often the first step.

In some extreme cases I’ve had to negotiate, allowing them to continue their old pattern for a period of time. Bringing the issue into focus but not trying to stop it can be a gentle way to assist change. A person may need to prepare for such a drastic change since the stick may have been a lifelong companion.

We don’t want them to punish themselves for not being able to stop beating themselves up! That might sound like a ridiculous sentence, but it does happen.

Beating oneself is a reaction to something that’s happened in the past and not a response to what is happening in the present; as useful as shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.

Some say it’s a good way to self motivate, that a good quick kick up the backside never hurt anyone. Like many other things that we just accept as normal,

It’s only when we stop and take a look that we can see the damage caused.

If we treated our closest friends in the manner we treat ourselves I wonder how long they would stick around?

So how can we find a way to start to put an end to this internal culture of self-abuse?

Whatever the issue, step one is always awareness; only when you become aware of something can you do something about it. Keep a mental diary for a week of how many times you beat yourself over something or other, try not to punish yourself for what you find, this is work in progress and we’re sorting it out. Be gentle with yourself, as gentle as you are with your closest friends.

Awareness is the first step to cure.

It will take time to change this habit, yes maybe for the most part that’s all it is. A very bad habit we have never questioned, only when we stop and inquire can we seek to find out its use or in fact our need to keep it in place.

What would we gain, what would we lose by disarming that stick?

Many mix up responsibility with blame or fault. They are in fact totally different and stem from a very different place within us.

However slight the punishment, the collective effect over time can be highly dangerous and in some cases fatal.

Only the other day I read about the very sad and untimely death of the “Cranberries” singer Dolores O’Riordan.

While once interviewed, she said that she blamed herself for what had happened to her at the hands of the man who abused her as a child. Burying her self-judgment may have created untold emotional and possibly physical damage until the day she died.

For many of us our stories may not be as horrific, yet we still manage to inflict damage with that stick as we administer punishment for every wrong we may think have done.

When you take stock and look back, what has been gained by beating yourself with that stick. Would not more be gained from a loving benevolent approach to self?

If any of you would like to experiment with this new possibility we can arrange for you to drop off your SBS with me and maybe you can start to discover in its absence how different your life can be….

Long and short-term stays can be arranged to house your SBS and I don’t charge a fee.

Joseph Frances Flanagan 19^th March 1926-23^rd Jan 2004

As we reach the anniversary of my father’s passing, there is still a part of me that has not come to terms with loosing him. After many years, I continue to find it hard to use the words “Dad” and “Dead” in the same sentence.

Loosing him was always up there on that list, the one entitled;

“Things not allowed to happen anytime soon, if ever.”

Songs he sang to us as children still reverberate through my head. Every time a particular one popped into my thoughts I would quickly push it out of sight, out of mind.

“I’m sending a letter to Daddy, the address is heaven above.”

That image always brought dread to my heart. Even now singing along as I type makes me cry… How could I truly comprehend the loss of someone who had always been there? Nothing could have prepared me for such a unique experience and like few others; it changed the landscape of my life forever.

So can we ever really come to terms with the issue of death?

Is there a correct way to process or deal with loosing someone?

Grieving seemed to have a time and place, an incubation period, a definite yet unspoken shelf life, but in reality how could we know. It was never talked about at home, never taught in school and generally avoided wherever possible. Only when it landed in my lap did I start looking for answers to questions that I never wanted to face.

My father used to say he had a very different relationship to death than I.

Raised in an Irish catholic family in Limerick, Ireland, he recalled how he and his friend Joe O’Brien would often walk into people’s homes when a dead occupant had been laid out in the front room, waiting for people to pay their respects. They would just pop in to have a look and check them out, he said. Death for him was not hidden from view, unlike me who never saw a dead body close up until the day I saw him in the Chapel of rest.

What did I know of death and loss? What had I been taught?

I thought I was lucky having got to such an age without experiencing anyone near and dear to me dying, but was I really?

THEN IT HAPPENED!!!

Then followed the acceptable time of grieving, letters of condolence, and stories from those who knew him. The reluctant send off, the drug of disbelief and the first day that I woke and didn’t need to remember he had gone. I recall my mother saying how she would wake thinking “Oh was it all a bad dream” and then to be hit by the harsh reality of life or in this case death. Noticing a day had passed and I had not thought of him made me feel bad, how could I have gone a whole day and not remembered.

Soon after I bumped into a colleague at work and told her my news. She hugged me close and whispered in my ear.

“I’m sure that little boy inside you must be hurting real bad,” she said.

“My father died 14 years ago and I have to say it does not get any easier.”

“Oh great” I replied, “I thought you’re supposed to say things to make me feel better?“

But how could she? How could it ever be better?  As I once heard say, it never gets better it just gets different.

Death came like a thief in the night stealing him away, leaving a void, a void that can never be filled.

I appreciate that this may not be relevant to everyone, that some may feel totally at peace and resolved with the passing of their loved ones. I’m addressing those like me who felt anything but complete.

Now don’t get me wrong I don’t wake up each day wanting to phone my father, I didn’t even do that while he was alive. Just sometimes I would give anything for one more phone call.

So I wonder what if anything we can do differently?

Since the reality on the outside is set in stone, in fact carved in stone standing on his grave, we might need to look inwards for an answer.

Maybe we just made a simple mistake, thinking we should feel differently than the way we do!

Maybe we are not meant to get over it, maybe we are not meant to get over anything!

What if it’s all the wrong way around?

What if it is the grief that needs to let go of us?

Releasing its grip on us only when it’s had its time, a length only it knows.

Death cannot only be a shock but sometimes can put you into a “State of shock”. This state can be nature’s way to help you cope, becoming mentally, emotionally or physically frozen in part by shock, can help you deal with intense situations. There are countless stories of people injured in accidents walking away carrying their own limbs, numbed out in a state of shock. Others who witness horrors and atrocities find a state of shock takes over and guides them through, only to later feel the impact.

The state of shock can be nature’s way of spoon-feeding us reality a bit at a time so we literally can cope with it and not choke.

As the freeze of shock starts to melt, it allows more of the unexpressed feelings from the trauma to surface. For many that process goes unnoticed and feeling just gets mixed up with other feelings, attributed or blamed on something else. While others report that even years after the trauma feelings resurface as if asking to be felt again needing more expression.

Here our feelings just need to be felt and expressed, no need to be understood. An emotional process that make no sense, but being that it is not a logical process why would it make sense? So best to stand out of our own way and just feel and express.

As the motto says, “Just feel the feeling until the feeling no longer needs to be felt”.

It was in year three after my father died when I felt myself come to a stop in the supermarket. It was as if they was a little boy deep inside of me crying out …

“How can my Daddy be dead?” as if a part of me had just woke up and only found out he was gone. Sure it might sound crazy but it was what I felt. So rather than try to understand it I just stood under the feeling and let it shower over me. It stopped when I presume it no longer needed to be felt.

 

“Now where did I leave my father’s phone number?”

You may live in a world that seems far from your choosing.

You may believe that you have very little choice in life and definitely did not choose to be born.

 

The labour of an imminent birth is probably the first time that a being expresses its choice. It is not well known that the baby and not the mother starts the process of labour. Often at this point outside forces interfere trying to control and manipulate the situation, stealing away the choice from a child to decide the perfect time to be born. At this point we have little choice, little control, little power. Fortunately as we grow and develop in life the threads of our autonomy start to weave together through the fabric of our being, and as a result choice and power over our life grows and develops.

I’m sure if you took the time to look back you could find pivotal moments where a choice was handed over to you or one taken away. As you investigate it becomes apparent that these choices can have monumental, or in other cases, totally insignificant effects on your life. At times we may have felt controlled and powerless and at the whim of another. At other times we felt powerful and liberated by those two simple yet profound words

 “I choose….”

The choices made on our behalf can be more for the benefit of the person choosing rather than the one affected by the choice.

“I want my son to have the opportunities that I never had” said the father concerning his son. Many years later the son tells me how he never wanted what his father never had but was not included in that decision.

The fact that you are reading this comes at the end of millions and millions of choices that you or others have made on your behave.

 

“See how powerful choice is?”

Many people look back critically at the choices of their past and say they would have done it better or different and if given the chance again would choose a different way. Unfortunately we cannot change the past but fortunately we can change the way that we relate to it. That is the choice we have!!! Finding compassion, self love and acceptance for the decisions and choices that we made in the past can not only release us from the hold that our past can have over us but also frees us to take a chance to choose again, knowing that if we do choose “badly” there is a way to resolve it.

 

Holding onto a judgment of self blame can be very damaging and eat away at us for a lifetime.

We may need help to find the choices that can lead us to healthy, peaceful and harmonious resolution of any particular episode from our past; allowing what was once a trauma to become no more than another memory.

We may also need help to see where we have choice today. Awareness of the choice is liberating, powerful and life enhancing. Understandably in some situations, choice can be daunting as I encountered shopping with my friends in a French supermarket. Standing at one end of the cheese counter the other end seemingly reaching out beyond infinity. Thankfully I was just along for the ride. What I later came to realise was that in the face of greater choice one just needed more information.

Going back to where one has choice is like hitting the reset button on life. Far to often we find ourselves at a place or situation where we feel powerless and out of control, impotent in our own life. As a result we start to fall down a negative spiral that builds more negativity along the way. The healthiest way to stop this is to ask that simple question again:

“Where do I have Choice?”

Look at the small things, awareness of that which we have choice over builds in the same way that a single brick on another eventually becomes a house.

 

Never underestimate the potential power of a simple choice.

We might take for granted the simple choice to go to the kitchen and pour a glass of water from the tap

10% of the world’s population doesn’t have access to turning on their own tap!!!

For then it is a luxury they only dream of. Bring it back to basics and in doing so you can start to regain your perspective and personal power. However small the choice seems to you it does not make it insignificant, as someone once said…

 

“If you don’t think that small things make a difference try sleeping with a mosquito.”

Many years ago I was working under my car attempting to fit a new gearbox in an unfortunate twist of events I found myself trapped under my car. My panic only made it worse as the realisation of my situation hit me. My whole body tensed and I started to find it hard to breathe. After what felt like minutes but was probably only seconds I realised that I needed to help myself relax as my tension was only making any chance of escape impossible. I looked out to see my left hand that was not under the car and was in fact free and able to move. As I focused on the movement of my hand my body started to relax and once again became flexible. As a result I was able to ease my way out from under the car.

Rejoice in the truth that we have a CHOICE and allow yourself to bathe in the realization that Choice is a cornerstone to living a healthy fulfilled life.

I ask myself to be compassionate with me for taking so long to find such an important Key. I did the best I could with what I had available at the time.

I choose to be gentle with myself…

What do you choose for yourself???

I was told recently that I must be a bit ‘OCD’ when pointing out an irregularity to a rather large impressive gateway adjacent to the tennis court where we were playing.
I quickly replied that I was not in fact “OCD but rather “ATD.”
Looking puzzled he asked me what “ATD” stood for having not heard the term before.
“Attention To Detail” I informed him. “I just like things to be as they are designed to be not misaligned or out of place”.
The kinder or less judgmental observation may have been to say that I had a keen eye to observe such detail.

My father spent his professional life being an engineering inspector constantly checking the intricate details of other peoples work and I never remember hearing anyone label his keen eye so disparagingly.
It’s interesting to ponder why people label each other. This can be seen starting very early is life, in the school playground pointing out a difference in another child and then belittling that child for it.
Obviously each situation needs to be taken on its own merit but in my experience most labels carry a negative connotation, it’s not often stated to praise the recipient.

O.C.D is not the only term that is over used and for the most part mis-used. Colour blindness is another that many don’t really understand. Being someone labeled “Colour Blind” myself I can clear up once and for all that I do see colour, many colours in fact. My world is not seen in black and white even though I know in a few rare cases this is the reality. For most with this condition it would be more correct to call it colour confusion. When certain colours are put next to each other the viewer can become colour confused.
So the question is does it help having a label or merely add stigma and shine a light onto something that the person may carry shame for.
In other situations naming something brings clarity and with that often comes understanding and hopefully acceptance.
Being able to explain that her son suffered from aspergers allowed a mother not to feel like a “Bad mother” while chatting with other mothers and observing their children at the school gates.

Maybe it would be helpful to create a new word that meant “A label that is intended to make the recipient feel either
Bad, less than, an outsider, or a catalogue of other negative feelings and judgments.

Any ideas????

Maybe we could call it “Labely” after all it seems to be ok to have a need but when told one is needy it’s a put down, so the “Y” makes all the difference or should we be saying that the “Why” makes all the difference.

So the next time you find yourself wanting to label something or someone, stop and ask yourself this simple checklist
1. What is my motivation in saying this?
2. What is my intention in pointing this out?

On the other hand the next time someone labels you, just smile and say…

“Thank you for noticing”

I see people from all walks of life troubled both personally and professionally. For some it can be difficulty in their mental or emotional life, for others it manifests physically through discomfort, pain or illness. Emotion is an incredibly powerful force but all too often overlooked as the root cause of so many issues. Emotion is potentially mankind’s greatest asset but arguably the least understood. For some though, in the right conditions, stress or disruption, it can be a ticking time bomb.