Swine Flu .....

Opening my email today I was drawn to a message entitled “shocking news”.  My first thought was to delete it as it looked decidedly like spam, and then my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to open it.  Fortunately the main message was in an attachment. However, the one line teaser was enough to make me jump back and instantly click delete.  Suffice it to say that it was about Swine Flu.  An emotive subject at best,  with potential to be absolutely terrifying at worst.

 

For those of us who choose to believe that the world is one big conspiracy and an atomic meltdown just waiting to happen, shocking stories merely help to confirm our suspicions. However, for the rest of us mortals who are trying to retain some sense and sanity, around a subject that has already been compared to the Black Death, it is simply another scare tactic to shake off.

 

What is it that makes people want to spread such salacious “hearsay” and send us into blind panic? Everyone knows that it only takes a few extremists in a crowd to cause a stampede. Imagine what you can do by thoughtlessly passing on an email to potentially millions of people. There should be a warning on all computers of the penalty for such irresponsible behaviour.

 

There has been a lot of discussion recently around blogs and the integrity of information being passed through the internet, where there are no procedures for checking the validity of what is being written. At least when you read a newspaper, the editor is accountable for what goes to print and can be sued for libel. There is no such watchdog in cyber space. We have simply to use our own common sense and intuition to know what feels right and when to delete it, not only from our inbox but also from our minds.

 

The anti virus programs which identify hoaxes go some way to catching out unscrupulous emails. Nevertheless, how many people actually bother to check before pressing the forward key, whether what they are sending is the truth?

 

In the same way that we are being advised not to sneeze in our hands, as it spreads the flu, I would suggest that we only forward messages which contribute to the good mental health of our society, and practice some good internet hygiene, by dumping rubbish in the Trash Can where it belongs.    

 

 

 

 

Exodus

To all those leaving Dubai or another perspective on the global economic downturn

 

The eerie silence

of an empty town

The grey clouds

gathering

in preparation

How many souls

have come and gone from here

All victims of an easy life

The rest on hold

until they reach their

saturation

 

There’s only so much

pleasure

in one life

Then balance comes to play

and makes us choose

those options we’ve avoided

all those years

when comfort was the driving

motivation

 

Yet satisfaction does not please

the soul

in search of higher triumphs

in this mundane life

Don’t fool yourself

It’s only camouflage

When winter comes

and bareness of the trees

reveals  the deprivation

 

What keeps us in this place

Magnificent

When deep within we know

the truth is there?

Our stubbornness, refusal

to believe

that what we do

does not affect the soul?

 

Alone we came

and all alone we leave

And some of us attempt

connection here

but most discover

that our legacy

Is naught

but bitterness and tears

 

The joker laughs

as he peels off his face

You thought your life on earth

was free of charge

But now you see the devil

lies beneath

and I have come to collect

What you owe

 

You’ll pay in kind

through suffering and grief

For all those years

you took

but did not give

And all around you crumbles

Into dust

as Mother Earth cannot sustain

your lust

 

So get down on your knees

and say a prayer

To that false god of comfort

And prepare

to sacrifice your greed

for selflessness

 

And as you use this Earth

more gently

and with care

You will enjoy

the fruits of love

and gratitude

 

18^th April, 2009

Developers' Greed

When you build so high

Do you think of others

As you take their sky

When you take away the light

Leaving us to live in dark

Do you pay us for our sacrifice

Or are you ignorant

 

When you build your cities

Is there room for grass and birds

That fly beneath the trees

Or do you leave us

Concrete and stone

To live alone.

 

Is there space

For people to embrace

Their need to be

A family

Or did you forget

In haste

and greed

To think of that

 

When the buildings age

And their luster fades

Do you care to ask

For some repair

Or do you let them rust

And fall to dust

In an ugly mess

Of urban suicide

 

While you move away

And build elsewhere

Again, taking someone’s air

Until one day

There’s nothing left

And you choke

on your own

selfishness

 

Dubai 2007

Benefits of Self Love

Is it possible for us to find true love if we have not found our true self? Carl Jung had an interesting theory about the world outside of us being a projection of within. In NLP we call it “Perception is Projection”. So, if we apply that to relationship, to find your "true love", you would need to "truly love" yourself within.

 

On a very basic level we all know that we can never truly understand something until we have experienced it ourselves. We may think we understand but true knowing comes after the personal experience. An obvious example might be loss of possessions or a job, a failed marriage or relationship. We can sympathize with the other person but true understanding and empathy only happens when it happens to us, when we have experienced how it feels.

 

Relationship, like love is a two way street, an exchange of giving and receiving. Tantra teaches us that it is in the receiving that we truly connect. However, to be able to receive is not easy. It requires a switch in our thinking, our belief system. We need to believe that we deserve to receive and in many cases this goes against the cultural upbringing of our society. We are primarily taught that giving is acceptable and receiving, to a large degree, is selfish or greedy. So we focus on the former and suppress the latter. When we are unable to receive, it does not matter how much someone tells us we are loved, we cannot understand or accept it. Thus the exchange, the give and take, the push and pull is thwarted.

 

Many clients tell me they don’t feel loved or appreciated by others. My immediate response is “do you love yourself, do you appreciate your talents?” Usually they hang their head and admit they don’t. So what can we do about this? How can we learn to love and appreciate ourselves so that we can truly accept the compliment, the love offered by others, so that we can learn to receive?

 

We can begin by acting as if. When someone pays you a compliment, thank them and smile. If someone offers to do something for you, accept it with gratitude. When you do something well, thank yourself and smile. Tell yourself every morning that you appreciate who you are and can even love both the good and the ugly in yourself. After a while the very act of pretending to receive becomes a true form of acceptance.

 

One of the five NLP frames is that we are 100% responsible for the results we get. Once we take responsibility we are able to do something about our situation. Instead of wasting time and effort trying to change others, and we all know that doesn’t work, we can focus on ourselves instead. By ignoring or minimizing all the things we dislike about ourselves and empowering everything we like, we begin to grow into that positive model, that person we really would like to be. As Stephen Covey revealed in his Seven Habits, by focusing on the things we have control over, our circle of concern shrinks and our circle of influence expands. So, if you want to attract a fabulous partner or a better life, work on being fabulous yourself and you will find that new you is reflected in your new friends and relationships. Life is then truly what you always wanted.

Of electricity and other things

Of electricity and other things …….

 

The electrician arrived this morning to install my mother’s new hob. A fantastical new device that works through induction. It is a completely flat plate with four rings which do not get particularly hot to the touch, but are extremely efficient conductors of heat. I was making polite conversation with the fitter, whilst boiling the kettle for his cup of tea, when I remembered the light switch in the lounge.  Every time I touch it I get an electric shock and yet no one else, except my mother, can feel it. The switch is surrounded by a copper plate, unlike the others in the house which are made of the more common plastic variety.  He was struggling to read the instructions for use, so I walked over to the hob and showed him how it works. I can’t really take credit for any superior knowledge since I had used a similar model at my brother’s house once before. He thought the hob was not working because he could not see the heat on the plates. We then both realized that we needed to place a saucepan with water over the plate to see if the induction was working.  Immediately I touched the handle of the saucepan I could feel the tingle of electricity. I mentioned this and he said this was normal and not to worry, though he could not personally feel anything.

 

When he had completed the hob installation, I lead him to the lounge and he placed his hand on the “leaking” switch. Typically, of course, he could feel nothing there either. However, since both my mother and I could feel something, and to humor us, he went to get his electricity detector. Sure enough it lit up and he agreed it was quite dangerous and should be changed. We all had a good laugh at my extra sensory skills and he returned to the kitchen to collect his things.

 

Feeling quite proud of myself for such electrical devining, I asked if he could place his detector on the saucepan handle. Sure enough, it lit up. Again, my mother could also feel it. However, this time, I had an idea. If I hold my hand away from the hob would I also be able to sense (feel) the electricity. Yes! I could feel the tingle about 6 inches away from the handle of the pan. Placing the electricity detector in the same place, it also lit up. Hey Presto! At last my invisible skills had been validated by science.  There were indeed electrical currents passing through the air. Not enough to kill anyone, but something was definitely there. How marvelous, I thought. Now I can use this as an example to convince skeptics of the existence of energy fields around us, even if we can’t see or even feel them, they are definitely there.

Musings from the Creek

Musings from the Creek

 

Was it Betty Shine who used to say that you don’t have to be a reclining Buddha to meditate? Simply find a quiet place to sit or go for a walk and let the magic happen. Well, today I decided to take myself to the park and get some exercise and fresh air, or as fresh as it can be at this time of year in Dubai! I had been writing reports all day, stuck in front of the computer and I needed to move my body and my energy around. I was feeling extremely pleased with myself for having finished my mission (25 reports) and I just had that urge to get out and enjoy some natural therapy.

 

Creek Park is a gem of a place. Open early till late and mostly quiet during the week, especially day time. However, I was going there at night and I was pleasantly surprised to find it comparatively empty. I suppose the heat of summer had discouraged the usual hoards of weekend “bar-b-que’ers”. As I walked through the gate, I removed my shoes (my usual practice) so that I could experience the different textures of sand, soil and grass. A perfect way to ground myself and detox from the stresses of the day. I had my bottle of Masafi (water to the uninitiated) with me, so no problems about dehydration for the next hour or so.

 

Without expectation, I followed my feet, planting them firmly on the soft, cool grass. Wonderful! Exactly what the doctor ordered. I had only been walking a few minutes when it struck me. How busy my mind had become. Full of thoughts of today, yesterday and tomorrow. Was there any chance of switching if off? Right now all I really wanted to do was to be quiet and give my brain a rest. After all it had been working flat out all day. How could I calm that hard disk, that computer hub? And then the spirit of inspiration tapped on my door. All the greatest spiritual teachers of history will tell you, you only hear properly when you are silent. In fact my girl friend had so cleverly reminded me only yesterday that in order to hear our inner voice, our connection to our higher self or God (whatever your belief), we have to switch off the outer noise and tune into the inner peace, the inner ear.

 

That is all very well, I objected, but it is not so easy to shut out those noises, those external disturbances. There must be another way? At least if I can’t tune out the noise of my thoughts, maybe I can tune into the noises in the park. That way I will at least be able to concentrate on something other than my busy brain. At first, all I could hear were the obvious things like children screeching on a ride in the amusement park next door, a helicopter overhead. And those thoughts still crept in. But I stayed with it, and started to notice the lapping of the creek water on the shore, my feet squeaking in the wet sand, a solitary bird hooting across the water, crickets in the ground cover. I congratulated myself for each and every new sound that introduced itself to me. I am sure if anyone had been watching they would have seen my ears standing on end, straining like radars to trap the next audio offering.

 

Then I became distracted. Smells of bar-b-q food wafted beneath my nose and men’s perfume as a few families strolled by. I wondered if by shutting off my olfactory sense, the auditory one would be enhanced. Concentrate, gal, what can you hear? I stalked a tree and even put my ear to the bark. I was not sure what I expected to hear but I was willing to offer my ear in a token gesture of greeting anyway!

 

By now, of course, any of those curious as to what I was doing would have given me up as totally mad. Oh well!, I thought, sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice one’s reputation in the name of science. For science it truly was. I was in the middle of a very important experiment. The curious thing was that I lost all track of time and it must have been over an hour when I realized that I was feeling very calm and relaxed and that my noisy brain  was, for the most part, strangely silent.

 

Whatever I had been doing, something had worked. And that is when inspiration began. I suddenly had all these enlightened thoughts and I wished I had a tape recorder with me to capture them as they flooded into my consciousness. At which point I decided it was time to go home and try and capture the essence of what had happened on paper.

 

So next time you want to take a break, try your local park and let me know if you have the same experience. I will be listening out for your thoughts in the silence of my mind.

Passion

PASSION… noun 1. strong emotion, especially anger or love 2. great enthusiasm for something

 

I woke up this morning and there it was, this noun of all nouns, sitting in my heart like a bow to an arrow, bursting to make its mark, to hit the target of its desire. Unbridled passion is a fierce power. Where should we direct it, plant its seed, re-create the uncreated? When it is not directed in a loving and creatively fulfilling way it turns into its shadow side and that is when we use it indiscriminately and in dangerous ways, such as anger and rage.

 

How was your morning? Did you wake up with passion? What did you do with it? Shout at the mail boy? Yank the shirt on your uncooperative child? Did you knock your coffee all over the table and then curse all the way to the office? Or was there no passion, only a numbness of having to go through the motions of the day without enthusiasm or direction. What happened to that arrow, did it break and fall and lose its power? Where is the passion in your life? Did you lose it somewhere in your rush to create the life that others expected of you?

 

Passion is a gift that we are all born with. It is not something we can learn or acquire. It is something we feel. We all know it is there, but often life has a way of squashing it, and in that act of suppression and denial we become very sad. Prolonged sadness turns to anger as that is the only way we can handle the pain. When there is no passion in our lives, we are not really living. We are merely shadows of our true selves, holograms of existence.

 

Pick up your bow, and as you pull back the arrow, feel the power of your intentions like a force field of love in your entire being; slowly turn and look around at the vista of life in front of you. Where would you like to make your mark? With whom or what would you like to share your power, your passion, your drive? Point that arrow, set the mark, then let it go. Let it soar into the world with freedom and intent. Intend that wherever it lands, wherever it makes its mark the target of your desire will be awakened and in that awakening will inspire you with new life, new thoughts, new energy, new being. You see, the energy you send out will always come back. We attract what we require. The more focused you are on what you want, and the more passionate you are about it, the more powerfully will you manifest.

 

The secret to utilizing that passion, that driving force is to know where to direct that arrow. Once you have figured that one out, the rest is just quantum physics. You let it fly, now let it go. Cut the cords of your kite, let that blue bird of paradise soar into the light blue yonder. Know that your passion, your energy, your power to creatively manifest is now on its way, set free. Be empowered by this act, and smile, knowing that you have made your mark on this world and it is only a matter of time before it sends an arrow back to you.

 

Live your life today with Passion and you will find yourself energized with the joy and enthusiasm for life that you truly deserve.

 

A Day Off

A Day Off

 

There is something wonderfully freeing about being forced to stay home sometimes. Yesterday in Dubai, the Government announced a Public Holiday and closed some of the main roads through the city. It was rumored that a very important politician hailing from the US of A was about to touch foot on our sacred soil and true to Dubai’s reputation for great hospitality and absolute security, the Government was doing everything it could to ensure a smooth visit. Thus all offices were closed and the unofficial “curfew” meant we residents could enjoy a day of “enforced captivity” at home. We had no choice but to go with the flow as the main artery through the city was temporarily blocked.

 

I woke up on that day with a strange sense of anticipation. Would everyone stop working? Would the shops be open? After all, how would their staff commute to work? The first thing I noticed was the eerie silence. I could not even hear the sound of the people upstairs. Yes, everything had stopped. The building sites surrounding my flat were silent and empty, except for the security guards who still kept their lonely vigil outside. There were no cars at the parking meters, nobody in the street. It reminded me of Graham Green’s “On the Beach”. Was this the end of the world as I knew it?  No! It was simply beautiful. Beautiful peace, beautiful silence. There was time to think, time to enjoy, time to do whatever I wanted. Time for me without the interruptions of the outside world. I smiled and I stretched and I wallowed in the peace and quiet.

 

Why is it that we put ourselves into such a state of high anxiety in our daily lives? Why can’t we give ourselves permission to be quiet? Couldn’t we introduce our own curfews? An occasional day when there is no one else to please, nothing urgent to do and only ourselves to consider. I can already hear your clamoring objections – “too busy, too much to do, too many commitments, can’t stop work”.  However, consider this: “What would happen if you did? What would happen if you didn’t? What wouldn’t happen if you did? What wouldn’t happen if you didn’t?” Has that scrambled your busy brain?

 

Meditating monks and enlightened Buddhists have all discovered the secret that silence is very powerful and rejuvenating. I have often thought that “silent rooms” at work instead of “conference rooms” would be far more beneficial in getting our creative juices to flow, along with improved personnel relationships. So, why is silence so beneficial? It helps us to get in touch with our inner souls (not the ones on our feet, of course, not those soles, yet!). When we block out the noise of our environment, the noise of our external thoughts, we can make more sense of our life and what we want from it. That’s why coaches are so successful these days. A coach helps you get in touch with your unconscious mind, your inner soul. To help you sort out what you really want in your life, to slow down that frantic pace that prevents you from making those choices that lead to success and happiness.

 

It’s your choice. Your curfew.