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Archive for the ‘personal growth’ Category

The A to Z of Becoming. Part 2. P for Please

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on October 19, 2014| 1 Comment »

Tree heart

In the second part of the A to Z of Becoming, P stands for the verb “please”.

What I’m thinking is that it might be a good idea to explore “pleasing” this week. What do I mean by “pleasing”? Well, whatever pleases your heart.

I reckon there are two kinds of pleasing worth exploring – do something which pleases YOU – there is far too little self-compassion in this world. It’s not that we should all go about “just pleasing ourselves” and ignoring the rest of the world, nor, necessarily that we should be purely hedonistic and seeks lives of unending pleasure (fantasies, all those ideas!). Which is why I suggest that you ask your heart about your pleasing.

Maybe this week you could plan to something which would please you. Then do it. Then reflect on it later. How did it feel? What was it about what you did which pleased you?

Then, to keep a healthy balance, also think what you could do to please somebody else. Think of someone…..a relative, a friend, a neighbour, a workmate…..what could you this week which would please them? (Maybe you should ask them!) Then do it. Then reflect on it later? How did it feel? What was it about what you did which pleased them? And how did that please you?

With the verb to please, I’m thinking about how we increase the compassion in our lives – the self-compassion AND the compassion we show to others. One touchstone for that is “what pleases my heart?”

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Slow down

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on October 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Autumn reflecting in the charente

Life can feel very full. If it is like a river, then that river can seem like it’s in full spate, rushing, rushing, rushing and very, very full.

So, in the midst of that, I find it helps, to choose to slow down for a bit, to stroll, wander, meander…..to see what catches my attention and to stop for a moment, gaze, listen, breathe.

The river in this photo is the Charente……which has a reputation for flowing slowly.

One of the features of life in France which surprises and delights me, is how the routine of closing all the shops on Sundays is still so common. In fact, in many towns, the shops will close not just on Sunday, but maybe on Monday too. When you’re not used it, it can catch you out, or frustrate you, but once you become used to it, and settle into it, it brings so many opportunities to slow down and create a healthy rhythm.

If your life has been flowing fast recently, choose a little slowness….just for a wee while. See how that feels.

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The irrational arrogance of certainty

Posted in from the consulting room, from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography, science on October 17, 2014| 1 Comment »

As I was walking in a forest the other day I came across this –

 

new growth in the forest

I often feel a kind of thrill seeing new growth like this. It’s the emergence of Life on Earth. This little seedling might well grow up to be one of the great trees of this forest. How does it do that? How does this one little seed begin to sprout, begin to reach upwards through the decaying leaves on the forest floor, and seek out the sun, the air, and the rain?

And then a little further on, I find this tree….

 

tree

Don’t adjust your screen – it’s the right way up!

Look at these twists and curves and corners, as the tree reaches first this way, then another. Who could predict which way any of these branches would grow? Who could predict what this tree would look like today if they were seeing it back when it was one of those little seedlings pushing its way towards the light?

I see this everywhere.

I saw it every day with every patient I ever met. Who could have predicted how this person would be today, what life they would be living, and how they would be experiencing it?

Nobody.

That’s what gets me about the irrational arrogance of those who claim to know. Those who claim certainty. I am never convinced by those who claim they know what the results will be of a particular treatment for a particular individual. They can throw the term “evidence based” about as much as they like, but if they think that label gives them some magical ability to predict the future for individual human beings, then they are quite likely to be mistaken.

I don’t like the irrational arrogance of certainty in any area. I don’t like it in politics, matters of belief, wordview (religious, atheistic or scientistic), in economics, or any other human domain. Life is not predictable. Living organisms cannot be properly understood if represented as mere objects. All living forms are dynamic, open, complex systems. All are unique and together they are diverse. Commonalities matter, but so do differences.

If there is one thing I always doubt, it’s certainty.

But then, like Montaigne, I’m fond of saying “mais, que sais-je?” (“but what do I know?”)

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Your symbols

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on October 14, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I saw this on a gravestone the other day….

 

Heart, anchor and cross

….what caught my eye was that little collection of three symbols placed at the top.

A heart, an anchor and a cross.

It got me wondering why those three particular symbols for this person, and then it got me wondering which symbols I’d choose to have associated with me in this way – not necessarily as a literal gravestone symbols, but as personal symbols.

Which symbols, if any, would you choose? Which mean the most to you, and why?

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The A to Z of becoming. Part 2. O for observe

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography on October 12, 2014| 1 Comment »

Fishing net

In the second part of the A to Z of Becoming, O stands for Observe.

My first thought was to write again about using a camera. I carry a camera everywhere and have done for years. I find that if I have the camera in my hand I take a lot more photographs (I mean instead of carrying it in my bag and getting it out each time to use it). I have repeatedly had the experience that a conscious choice to have the camera in my hand increases my power of observation……I notice more when I have a thought about maybe taking photos. These days almost everyone has a camera with them all the time – in their smartphone. But sometimes you have to remind yourself that you do really have that camera with you…..it’s not just a phone!

But my second thought has been stimulated by reading James Pennebaker’s Secret Life of Pronouns. Pennebaker is a psychologist and in that book he describes an interesting experiment he did years ago. He attached a small video camera to a baseball hat then got students to put the hat on, walk a block from the college to the drugstore, buy some chewing gum, then walk back. Afterwards, they watched the videos. What they saw was fascinating. One video was almost exclusively of the pavement, as the student hardly looked up. Another couple showed the students were checking out any members of the opposite sex who passed by. And in one there was a very long shot of the chewing gum display as the student stood for ages trying to work out which gum to buy.

His point was that no two students observed the world in the same way because their personalities affected what they observed.

I’ve thought something similar before when you think about the conversations you hear after a group of friends have been to see the same movie, and you think “did we all actually see the SAME movie?”. There are many things which affect how we experience the world, but not least is what we observe.

So your challenge for this week, should you choose to accept it, is to observe your observations. Take some time to see what you’ve been seeing today. You can do that either by carrying a camera and taking photos through the day, then looking at the set in the evening, or by taking notes through the day…..writing down little observations, things which catch your attention, then reading through the notes at the end of the day.

Observe your observations. Become aware of what is catching your attention.

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What’s your tipple?

Posted in from the consulting room, from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, personal growth, photography, science on October 11, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Rose hips

Last few grapes

Human beings are very adept making medicines from plants.

Have you come across the Sacred Science project? (They have made a thought provoking documentary about plants used in healing in the Amazon – you can find it on vimeo, but google sacred science to learn more).

Many, many years ago in the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh I saw an exhibition of the uses of plants by desert peoples. I’ve never forgotten it. I was so impressed with the market stalls they set up, with one displaying plants used to die clothes beautiful colours, and another one showing plants used to treat a variety of diseases. I remember thinking how on earth did they figure that this particular plant was great for dyeing your clothes purple, but this other is a great cure for diarrhoea?! It was that exhibition which introduced me to the whole field of ethnobotany……the study of Man’s relationship to plants.

A few years later I read that Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, first experimented with Peruvian tree bark (Cinchona). When I read about that medicine, which had been used to treat “swamp fever”, a disease we now know as “malaria”, I remember thinking how did the indigenous peoples of Peru know that this particular plant would treat this particular disease – a truth we confirmed many, many years later when we isolated the chemical, quinine, from this same tree, and found it was a good treatment for malaria.

I don’t know the answers to those old questions, but I am still fascinated by potential benefits we humans can receive from plants.

As I write this I’m watching the last few days of the grape harvest in Charente. Those grapes will be used to make cognac, using processes not that dissimilar to the ones we use in Scotland to make whisky from grain. I’m just learning that the various areas within the cognac-producing region of France produce extremely different flavours – just like the different regions of Scotland produce distinctly different whiskies. In both cases, the specific interactions between people and plants in these countries produce distinct and unique results.

What’s your favourite human-plant interaction?

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New to me

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography on October 10, 2014| 1 Comment »

Maybe clover?

Sometimes I describe myself as “insatiably curious”. I suppose I have an instinct for what’s different, unique or unusual. And I find all of those things every day.

I’ve no idea what this is in this photo I took. It was pretty small but the colour made it stand out in the grass. Now that I can see it more clearly in this photo it’s even more beautiful, even more curious, than it was when I was taking the picture.

Amazing! Isn’t life just full of such uniqueness and diversity?

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Bursting with potential

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on October 9, 2014| 1 Comment »

Walnut in hand

There are a couple of walnut trees outside, each one abundant with nuts just now. I picked one of the nuts up from the dozens carpeting the ground.

Look!

Isn’t it amazing? This incredible dark brown walnut emerging from its shell. Look at the patterns on its surface. See how those patterns are echoed in the lines of my skin?

And, slightly disturbingly, doesn’t it look a little like a small brain?

 

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Change upon change

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on October 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Autumn rain

This is a beautiful season here in the Charente. After a heavy shower of rain (it’s impressive when rain falls with a certain determination or significance) I saw the raindrops on these gorgeous autumnal leaves.

I love the Japanese cultural reverence of transience which they celebrate  every Spring with the cherry blossom, but this combination of raindrops on autumn leaves seems to me to capture the essence of the dynamic changes we experience continuously in our lives……changes upon changes.

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The A to Z of Becoming. Part 2. N for Nest

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, personal growth, photography on October 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

In the A to Z of Becoming, second part, N stands for NEST.

photo

photo

photo

 

Although we normally associate nesting with birds, like this little one building his unusual upside down nest with its entrance from below, we also use the concept of nesting in our own lives.

In one way, our nest is our home. We all need a sense of home, and each of us will personalise our living space to create our own familiar nest. Have you thought about your home that way? What’s your nest like? How’s it doing? Have you made it the kind of nest you want to live in? Is there anything you’d like to change or modify to make it a more comfortable nest, make it more YOUR nest?

It’s interesting to look at the three photos above. They remind us that it takes time to build a nest. We don’t often walk straight in to a house and it’s instantly our home. It takes time, effort and choices to make it home. They also remind us that all nests are unique. There’s no single “right way” to build a nest. What’s important, is not only that it does the job of providing us with shelter, but that it feels like our home.

We use the concept of nesting in another way too, I think. Nesting involves some snuggling down, or, in old Scots’, to “coorie doon”. I’ve a friend who talks about the need for the occasional “Club Duvet Day”…..you get the idea. Sometimes we need to create a pause which involves making a small, comfortable space and settling into it for a bit.

So, what do you think?

Is there anything you could be doing to make your nest more the way you’d like it to be?

Or do you have the need this week to “coorie doon” for a wee while, to create a wee nest and settle into it – for rest, for restoration, for recovery?

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