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Archive for the ‘personal growth’ Category

Entwined

Posted in from the consulting room, from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, narrative, perception, personal growth, philosophy, photography, psychology, science on May 3, 2021| 1 Comment »

I reckon we pretty much expect trees to grow straight up, then branch a bit, then grow further, still straight up. But, actually, of course, this is seldom the case. Trees, even their main trunks often veer off this way and that, or bend in one direction, only to turn in a totally different one a few metres further on. I confess I don’t know what makes a tree take the twists and turns that it does.

Look at this one for example, not only has it swerved around an almost 90 degree angle but it seems to have entwined itself on the neighbouring tree. What do you think? These trees are lovers? They’ve entangled themselves in each other’s lives forever?

It looks that way to me.

So maybe some of the shape of this tree can be understood in relationship to the other tree. Now how often is that the case with we humans? Do we ever reveal our character in any other way than by responding to what we encounter and by acting in response to the others in our social world? Can you really understand anyone without understanding their place in a family, in a community, a society? Can you really understand anyone without seeing how they respond to others, without exploring the nature of their relationships? I don’t think so.

A belief in the uniqueness of every single human is at the core of my world view and my practice as a doctor. But I never attempt to understand a person solely in isolation. I can only get an idea of who they are by hearing the stories of their experiences and relationships, and by observing how they respond to others….including myself.

I’ve no doubt that all our interactions with others change us. I would not be who I am today without having been changed by all the doctor-patient relationships I experienced in my life. You could say patients made me who I am. Not only patients of course, you also have to take into account the others in my life, family, friends, colleagues, even those who challenged me, or disliked me.

Our lives are entangled.

That’s just how it is.

But we can make choices, and we choose both who and how. We can choose to pay attention to certain people, to care for them, to engage with them, to collaborate with them, or to compete with them. All of those choices weave our unique, personal web of inter-relationships. And that constantly evolving cloth forms the very tissue of our being…..or should I say of our “becoming”.

When I look at this photo today it leads me to contemplate the people in my life, those who are no longer present, those who I’m actively relating to, and those who played significant roles in fashioning my experiences and creating the memories I have. You could say, it leads me to consider the characters in my life story. Who they are, who they were, what experiences we had together and how we become entwined and entangled.

I am grateful to them all. We made each other who we are…..together.

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Layers and waves

Posted in creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography, psychology on May 2, 2021| 1 Comment »

Last time I went to the coast was about a month ago, and the time before that was probably about a year ago…..because of the restrictions on movements due to the pandemic. So, when I went I was struck by just how much had changed. There had obviously been high tides and storms and the whole area between the beach and the dunes which lead to the forest had been completely reshaped by nature. Gone were the wooden walkways, and gone were the slopes down to the sand, replaced with steep, cliff-like edges which were impossible to traverse.

This photo here is of a the coast much further south from here, but looking at it again today I was struck by the evident power and activity of the sea, and the shaping of the rock.

We tend to dismiss rock as something static, but you only need to have a long enough interval between visits to see more clearly just how much it changes. On this particular cliff you can so many layers. When we walk on the layer of soil over the rock we aren’t aware there are so many layers beneath us.

I like the image of the layers, partly because I think they act as a metaphor for our life experience. Beneath the surface of our conscious daily behaviour and character lie layer upon layer of memories, emotions, ideas, beliefs and values. The layers constantly shift on each other and every day we lay down new ones. Every layer has an effect on the others and the totality of them all shape and influence our perception, our world view and our responses to daily events.

This particular cliff seems to have the shape of a face. Do you see that? Our brains are great at seeing faces….we even see them where there aren’t any present! Like here! That’s partly because social connections, relationships and the ability to interpret the inner lives of others is so, so important to we humans.

Then I look at the sea, and it isn’t a quiet, passive sea. It’s full of energy. It’s constantly shaped by the winds, the tides and the energies carried across oceans in the water’s own version of layers. Maybe the layers in water don’t look like the ones in rock, but they are layers, all the same, each with their own ecosystems and each in constant interaction with the others.

The water and the rock are also in constant communication, also permanently changing and shaping each other, which is what life is like for all of us too. We are constantly being changed and shaped by our environments and by others, and, in turn we are constantly shaping them.

So, that brings me back to why I’m sharing these photos and these reflections. I hope to put something positive out into the world. I hope to send out energies, emotions, perceptions, and thoughts which will touch you, dear reader, and stir something creative, something delightful, in your life today.

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Coping with limits

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography on May 1, 2021| Leave a Comment »

These two photos grabbed me today. I took them both in the city of Albi about three years ago ie pre-pandemic. Look at the number of plane trails criss-crossing the sky. There seems to be some kind of order to them in the first photo, then in the other one, take through a big arch at the front of the cathedral, the paths look pretty chaotic. I like them both. The both please me.
I live in South West France (further north than Albi) and the skies here were covered with these trails every single day. Now there are hardly any.
I think what makes these two photos especially appealing is that they aren’t just photos of trails on a blue sky. In each case, those trails are bordered or framed. One by tall buildings and the other by the tall arch.
We don’t like limits, do we? They feel like the impair our freedom. They feel like a constraint. They feel frustrating. But the truth is we live with limits all the time because we humans are mortal. We’re only here for a few brief years and we live within the boundaries set by our genes, by our upbringing, by the circumstances of our family and individual lives, by the laws of Nature, and by the politicians, economists policies and rules.
Limits in themselves aren’t bad things. Some of them are just the ones we have to learn. We can’t fly like Superman. We won’t live forever. Health isn’t infinite. We have talents in some areas and lack them in others. I just don’t think it is true to tell people they can be whatever they want to be. What is true, however, is that we can each be the fullest expression of our individual uniqueness. Nobody else will manage to achieve my uniqueness better than I can!
What’s the “serenity prayer” again?

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

That’s the thing, isn’t it? The trick is to become aware of reality, instead of trying to force the world to comply with our desires and imaginings, then to understand how much we can indeed change, and to have the courage to do that.
Although I feel these limits keenly, I know I have to become more flexible. I know I have to adapt. I know I’m going to have to live differently….at least for the foreseeable future, and perhaps for the rest of my life. If I spend my time and effort raging against that, what kind of life will I have? A life of raging?
So, I’m looking at these photos again today, remembering the many trips I’ve made around the world, the places I’ve visited, the people I’ve met, and I’m beginning the process of thinking how I want to live now. Today, tomorrow, in the weeks, months and years ahead.
I’m also more aware now that we live collectively. I’m more aware of our inter-connectedness, and I’m determined to contribute what I can to making our shared world a better a place.
When I think of it that way, I find the frustrations ease, and an excitement rises.
How about you? How are you coping? How are you feeling? Does it open something up for you if you consider the limits this way?

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Community

Posted in books, from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography on April 30, 2021| Leave a Comment »

When the Stranger says: ‘What is the meaning of this city?

Do you huddle close together because you love each other?’

What will you answer? ‘We all dwell together

to make money from each other’? or ‘This is a community’?

T S Eliot. Choruses from The Rock

Is there any greater social creature than the human being? Our offspring are more dependent on us, and for longer, than any other living organism. Babies just wouldn’t make it to adulthood without the intense and dedicated parenting and care they need. Even the very structure of the brain of those who are deprived of love and attention in the first few months of life is poorer than the brain of a child who has been cared for. They develop less brain cells and less connections between the cells they have.

Children learn much faster than adults, but we all learn through strong social bonds. We learn by mimicry, by copying others, by adopting the attitudes, values and behaviours of those around us.

Ideas and insights spread like wildfire around the world. So do emotions, whether they be fear and despair, or joy and celebration. Emotions are infectious.

Think of the experiences you’ve had in large groups – whether are a spectator/fan at a sporting event, or a member of an audience at a concert, or festival. The experience of collective excitement and joy is transcendental. It is deeply moving.

Solitary confinement is the cruellest, hardest form of punishment meted out on human beings.

We need to belong, we need to connect, we need to form relationships. We need to love and be loved.

Not one of us would last long without the contributions and actions of countless others.

So why do we “huddle close together” as Eliot’s Stranger asks? Maybe it’s not because we all love each other. We don’t. Maybe it’s not “to make money from each other”, although that seems a strong possibility!

I think it’s because we are born into communities, and we live our lives in them. Back in the depths of history people lived in tribes, then they settled with the development of agriculture, and created larger and larger communities in towns and cities. The last couple of hundred years has seen an acceleration in urbanisation and more of us now live in mega-cities than at any point before. Yet, cities don’t hold that well together, do they? They all seem to have wealthy, privileged areas, and vast tracts of poverty and deprivation.

In the last few decades it’s become easier and easier to communicate over distances and now we have “virtual communities” which don’t share geographical territory together but are often much more cohesive and close than the “physical communities” we find in cities.

This pandemic has forced us from the physical into the virtual. It’s driven us into asynchronous communications of messaging and emails. It’s connected us through connected screens, and forced us out of shared workplaces and shared physical spaces of entertainment and recreation.

We’ll start getting back together in our towns and streets soon.

But I still like Eliot’s challenges from the Stranger. I think it’s a great idea to reflect and ask ourselves – what kind of communities do we want to build and/or belong to? And why?

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Abundance

Posted in creativity, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, philosophy, photography on April 29, 2021| Leave a Comment »

We planted a little fig tree a few years ago. It grew very quickly, didn’t produce much fruit the first year, produced more the next year, and here we are this year with what looks like is going to be bumper crop.

Abundance.

Maybe that’s not a word we think of on a daily basis, but maybe we should. For many reasons we are in the habit of living with a scarcity mindset. We feel we never have enough, we are always lacking something.

Whole economic systems and societies have been constructed on the foundation of the scarcity mindset. Already, even before this pandemic is over, you’ll read economists and politicians saying what we need now is to get people out to the shops and start buying. Buying what? Stuff. Doesn’t matter what. Just consume more, buy more, get more, have more.

And then what? All will be well?

Advertisers stir up discontent and desire, trying to convince us that unless we buy what they are selling our lives will be empty, devoid, incomplete. Trying to convince us every day that we lack…..

What do we lack?

Whatever they are selling.

But what if we lived with an abundance mindset instead? What if we realised that the universe had created the ideal conditions for Life to emerge? What if we realised that Planet Earth has evolved to allow Life to proliferate?

The issue isn’t one of scarcity. It’s one of uneven and unequal access. We could create societies where everyone had access to clean air, clean water, healthy food, comfortable homes, caring relationships, satisfying work.

Couldn’t we?

I just don’t believe the issue is scarcity. Because the universe didn’t just create the conditions for Life to emerge. It sustains Life. It develops Life. It proliferates Life.

I find that when I get in touch with an abundance mindset, I feel more gratitude. And gratitude is good for both mental and physical health. It’s one of the easiest and best things we can do – start a gratitude journal, and note down two or three things daily for which we feel grateful.

I find that when I get in touch with an abundance mindset, it opens my heart to others. It makes me more likely to be generous, kind and tolerant.

I find that when I get in touch with an abundance mindset it’s easier to enjoy the present moment, anxieties and fears start to settle, and creativity begins to flow.

I know that there is a lot of poverty, hunger, violence, cruelty and greed in this world. But I believe it can be different. Not least because we live in an abundant universe.

Is it hard to imagine a better world? Is it hard to believe we have the skills, the abilities, the knowledge and enough love in our hearts to make it happen? What do we need to make it happen? Intention, desire, determination and patience? If we bring those to bear with an abundance mindset, who knows what we could achieve?

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Unfurling

Posted in creativity, from the consulting room, from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, narrative, perception, personal growth, philosophy, photography on April 28, 2021| 1 Comment »

One of the most beautiful things to see in any garden is the unfurling of the petals of a flower. That phase where the bud opens up and the gorgeous coloured petals unfurl themselves captures an essence of Life for me.

I see this and I think “becoming not being” – you’ll have noticed that phrase at the top of my blog? I wrote that as a subtitle because it is the most fundamental lens through which I see and understand the world.

The difference between those two words is movement…a particular kind of movement…..movement of change from one state to another.

Everything is in the process of becoming. It’s easy to see that in living organisms. The trillions of cells which make up the human body are in constant process of birth, growth, maturing and dying. They are replaced at different rates according to their type (blood cells living much shorter lives than bone cells for example), but none of them stay the same for the whole lifetime of the person.

When we look at an old school photo we might recognise ourselves, but when we compare that to one taken a decade later, then another and another, we see very, very images of the same person. All might be photographs of me, but all look utterly different.

This process of growth and development is a key characteristic of health for me. When I was working as a doctor, it was important for me to have a positive definition of health. I wanted to to help people to become healthy, and healthy, I think, is a positive state in its own right, not just an absence of symptoms or disease.

When I used to look out of my window in Central Scotland I could see the mountains, and the distinct shape of Ben Led always caught my eye. It amazed me that every day it looked different. Of course, I wasn’t close enough, or around for long enough, to see the physical structure or the surface of the mountain change (though change it did, over millennia). But my daily experience of the mountain was created more than rocks and earth. It was created by the light, the clouds, the sun, and the seasons. And all that changed all the time.

Nothing is fixed.

That’s my point.

Nothing can be understood in isolation from its environment, from its network of connections and relationships, or from its unique history and potential.

Stories….narratives….are always in the process of becoming….because stories weave together the past, the present and some possible futures, into one beautiful cloth. A dynamic cloth, which is always unfurling, always becoming, not being.

This image stirs all of this for me. I love how the “becoming not being” lens makes every day so much more alive!

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Playing card reflection

Posted in creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography, psychology, tagged on April 27, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Why do we like reflections so much? I have many to choose from in my photo library. This is one of my favourites. I took two shots when I saw this. One in landscape format, and one in portrait. I find it hard to choose between them but the portrait one here has a little something extra which is that it reminds me of a playing card. You know how the Jack, Queen and King in a standard set of cards look the same whether they are “the right way up” or “upside down”? Well, this image reminds me of that effect.

I think reflections are something which “catch our attention”. When I see one, I’ll stop, take it in, probably take a photo. So it does two crucial things which make all the difference between drifting through life on autopilot, and living a conscious life.

When we notice something and pause to look more closely we’re activating, what Iain McGilchrist, in The Master and His Emissary, calls “the necessary distance”. This human capacity to make a space allows us to make responses, not just react. When we are on autopilot we are under the influence of our habits and reflexes. We find ourselves experiencing emotions or taking actions which we don’t understand. But when we pause, create the distance between cause and effect, between stimulus and reaction, then we open up the gates to choices, to imagination which can lead to novel solutions to problems or can stimulate us to create works of art and self-expression. This distance cuts the strings which others can deliberately pull, and allows us to re-assert our own values, our own beliefs and to tell our own, unique, individual stories.

There’s something else about this kind of reflection I’m sharing with you today. Half the image is upside down. When we look at the upside down half we are challenged to do two things – to make sense of what we are looking at, and to see the unreflected reality differently because we are engaging more actively. Is that clear? What I’m trying to say is that the reflection stops me, the upside down part of the image challenges me, and between them these two halves combine to make me pause, which gives me the opportunity to become more alert, more aware, and to enjoy the experience of the present moment more fully.

Finally, a photo like this just brings me joy because of the sheer beauty of the image. I hope it brings you some joy today, too.

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Eye in the sky

Posted in art, creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, narrative, perception, personal growth, philosophy, photography, tagged on April 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »

I love a blue sky. It lifts my spirits and warms my heart.

A plain dull grey sky has the opposite effect.

But wait, the sky isn’t featureless. Even a horizon to horizon cover of grey cloud is never completely homogenous. There are always variations there. There are thickenings, patches where the sun almost breaks through, or lighter patches which are backlit by the sun. There are swirls and lines and sheets and all kinds of forms. You just need to slow down, pay attention and notice.

I think the richness of features in the sky are partly down to the water molecules which make up the clouds, partly down to the light from the sun, partly down to the temperature changes and air currents, but it has another layer of richness added by the human imagination. We are the pattern seekers, and pattern creators par excellence.

Look at this sky for example.

There’s the silhouette of the edge of a tree on the far right of the image. Let your gaze drift across leftwards from there. What do you see?

I see the shape of an eye. The way I’d start to draw an eye by marking two lines in the shape of connected ellipses. There’s no sign of an eyeball, so this is either a closed eye, with the darker edge of the lower lid representing eyelashes, or it is the eye-shaped hole we often see in masks.

Once I’ve seen this I can’t un-see it.

Isn’t that strange?

It takes the imagination to “see” an eye in the sky, but once it’s there it has an impact. I feel watched. I feel seen. I can understand how ancient peoples believed that multiple gods and spirits lived with them. And even if those gods and spirits don’t seem real any more. There was a time when we humans had an awareness of a shared cosmos. They experienced wholeness and connections in their everyday. They didn’t have to question or analyse it, reality just seemed to be that way. Everywhere they looked they saw patterns, told stories, made sense of the phenomena of the ordinary day. Everywhere they turned they brought their imagination to bear and saw connections, discerned meanings, and drew upon what they learned to create art, to find their way across the planet, and to learn how to adapt to the changes and the seasons.

I don’t think there is any way to go back to those times, and I also believe that we have learned a lot since then, that we have deepened our understandings, broadened our knowledge. But I have a nagging feeling that we live in more superficial times now. That life seems somewhat thinner without that rich imaginative layer of stories, shapes, forms and patterns.

But, hey, none of that has gone away. We are able to slow down, to pay attention and to activate our imaginations any time we want. We can see more than a passing glance will reveal. We can make connections of greater depth and significance. We can new stories of the wholeness of Gaia, of the interconnectedness of all beings, of the constantly changing evolution and development of forms and diversity.

We can enrich our lives with art, poetry, stories, music, dance, ritual and loving relationships.

Well, why not?

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Strangely familiar

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography on April 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »

I had never even heard of a hummingbird moth before I came to live here in the Charente. I’d never heard of a hoopoe bird either.

Look at them – aren’t they amongst the most unusual creatures you’ve ever seen?

You know the hummingbird moth is around from the noise of its wings. They emit a deep, bass, tone, quite unlike that of any other flying insects. They love the buddleia plants, just as the butterflies do. I love to watch them hover in front of the plant, and slip that long, skinny proboscis down into each flower to drink up the nectar. They make their way from tiny flower to flower. I can’t imagine just how little nectar they must get from each single flower, but they just keep going, making their way, their special, apparently totally random way, from flower to flower, and bush to bush.

You know the hoopoe is around from its distinctive call – which sounds like, well, you guessed it, “hoo-po, hoo-po”. I think when I first heard it I thought it was perhaps a cuckoo or a dove, but I’ve learned, now, to recognise it as the hoopoe. Isn’t he the most unusual shape? With that long, long beak, he runs around across the grass, stopping to drill down into the soil and come up with a grub, or a worm. I have absolutely no idea how he does that. The movements, like those of the hummingbird moth, seem completely random. Yet, time and again, he comes up with food. Can he hear what’s going on under the soil? Can he smell his prey? Does he detect movement beneath his feet? I really don’t know, but I love to watch him. Once the chicks are born, you can see them follow a parent around as the search for food. The little ones drill down again and again and rarely seem to come up with anything to eat. Their parents feed them at first. Then one day they’ll turn up by themselves and sometimes I’ve thought, oh no, this little bird is never going to find any food, but they keep at it, running this way and that and stopping to peck, apparently randomly. Then after a while, they crack it, and come up trumps as often as their parents do.

These are two creatures which were so strange to me, and, in fact, I still find them exceptionally strange, but they’ve become familiar to me. I look forward to the first one of the season arriving in the garden, and I never tire of watching how they live.

Isn’t it strange how the unfamiliar can become familiar, without losing its distinctive uniqueness?
That’s what these photos make me think. How every day is unique, how every person is unique, how every living creature is unique. And what delight that brings me.

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Sharing

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography on April 24, 2021| 2 Comments »

One summer day, three years ago, we were sitting out in the garden having lunch. Here in the Charente there is a particular variety of melon – the Charnetais melon. It’s the perfect size to cut in half, scoop out the seeds, and fill the middle with Pineau (a local drink produced by the surrounding vineyards). An easy and delicious dish.

We have several Buddleia bushes in the garden and they attract a lot of butterflies and humming-bird moths.

On this particular occasion, this butterfly decided to join us for lunch, and flew down onto the melon my daughter was about to eat (she seems to attract butterflies even better than the buddleia bushes do, by the way). The butterfly took its time and enjoyed the Pineau – can you see how its proboscis is disappearing down into the alcohol?

This little episode made the lunch experience even better. It added to our pleasure, our delight and our senses of wonder and joy.

As I look at this image again today I’m struck by how the key theme seems to be sharing.

We were happy to share our lunch with the butterfly. More than that, sharing our lunch made the lunch even better.

Isn’t that often the case with sharing? Isn’t a drink, a coffee, a meal, enhanced when we share it with those who we love?

This has been one of the greatest challenges of the pandemic so far, and I suspect it’s going to remain a significant issue for many months to come. Because of enforced distancing, lockdowns, experiences of deaths of loved ones, we’ve been living more isolated lives. Yes, probably we’re all using messaging apps more, using video links more, maybe making more contact over all than we did before but it’s different isn’t it? Yes, we can have a “video party” together and it can be fun. Yes, we can share a “video apero” with friends and catch up. But there’s a lot of everyday, ordinary sharing which we did together that has been put on hold.

However, isn’t one of the most striking features of this pandemic the extent to which so many human beings are prepared to look out for other people, to care for other people, to even put their lives on the line to heal other people?

Isn’t one of the most striking features how scientists around the world have shared their knowledge, ideas and research results with each other?

Isn’t one of the most striking features how governments and their central banks have suddenly discovered they can find the money to support individuals and businesses during these enforced closures?

This is where my hope lies. I know the forces of greed and privilege are still as active as ever. I know the forces of prejudice and injustice are as active as ever. But we have a chance to blow on these positive embers of sharing and see if we can make them glow brighter.

We don’t need to go back to competitive, selfish, hyper-individualistic ways of living. We can build on what we’ve learned – that we share this one world. That we are all interconnected and we can share the problems and the solutions. We can be generous. We can look out for others, care more, share more. We can build on what we have in common, and delight in working together, creating together and sharing together.

Can’t we?

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