The Biologist PZ Myers said in 2010 that “science is what we do to stop us lying to ourselves”.
What a curious comment.
I like it because it acknowledges the capacity that we have to deceive ourselves. We don’t always want to find the truth. Read more
Christine Bryden suffers from Dementia. She was diagnosed at the young age of 47. In her career she had been the science advisor to the Prime Minister of Australia. She had a beautiful mind, but her ability to think was and still is being taken from her. She was forced to go inward. To ask the questions about where her identity might come from. Insightfully she notes:
“At the centre of our being lies the true self, what identifies us to be truly human, truly unique, and truly the person we were born to be. This is our spiritual heart, the centre from which we draw meaning in this rush from birth to death, whenever we pause long enough to look beyond our cognition, through our clouded emotions into what lies within.”1
What she had to do involuntarily we can do voluntarily. To move from a cognitive self that we create. One where our identity is defined by our thinking prowess. To move beyond a behavioural identity that we create. One where our identity is defined by what we do and what we have accomplished. Then move towards a spiritual identity that is created for us. An immovable and nourishing sense of self that comes from a living and loving creator.
1. Bryden, C. (2005) Dancing with Dementia: my story of living positively with dementia. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers p163
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What would school be like for your children if they did not have the following?
It is terrible to contemplate, isn’t it? It would be plain horrible. Read more
Sarah Turine, Deputy Mayor for Youth in Molenbeek said “I raised the alarm in 2010. I said there was a time-bomb in the district. We have said for a long time, the problem is social order, so all we needed to do was keep (the youth) occupied – make them play football, send them to the cinema but we didn’t help them find a place in society”1. Read more
Feelings are a curious thing. We can’t see them, but we definitely experience them.
They play themselves out in the theatre of our bodies. When we are happy or joyful our energy comes up. When we feel anxious our hearts pound, and we experience a shortening of our breath. When we are depressed we can become fatigued, we can sleep too much or too little. Read more
Part 2: Will Mindfulness take us to where we want to go? What are the consequences for a mindful life?
This is the second of three posts in a series titled “Being more than Mindful of Mindfulness”.
In the first post I examined whether or not Mindfulness as a clinical intervention is efficacious. The conclusion that I came to in that post was that Mindfulness is promising. As a therapeutic technique it is designed, according to the Australian Psychological Society, to “interrupt patterns of ruminative cognitive-affective processing” by “changing the relationship to thoughts, rather than challenging them”. It is too early to say that it is powerful in remediating the difficulties of those who have a clinical diagnosis. However, it does help the well stay well. Read more
This is the first of three posts titled “Being more than Mindful of Mindfulness”.
In this first post I will address Mindfulness as a treatment for clinical conditions. In the two posts that follow I will address Mindfulness as a way of life: What we might lose or gain in the process (Post Number 2), and why Listening to your Heart may be more productive than being Mindful (Post Number 3). Read more
Recently I visited some children and their families in a town far away from where I live.
The place I visited shall remain nameless. Suffice to say it is an environment characterised by helplessness and hopelessness. Drugs and alcohol are in abundance. Aggression, resentment, fear. Survival requires a form of cultural oppositional defiance – the ability to be up for a fight. Kids take themselves home from school early…. because they want to. Kids wander around at night… because they can. Anxiety and freedom mixes together. Read more
Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) is not uncommon. In fact it is rife.
A national survey involving both men and women revealed that one third of women and one sixth of men report a history of CSA(1). This estimate is somewhat elevated when compared to other estimates, but is not too far removed from other estimates either. For example a global meta-analysis of CSA prevalence found that between 164 – 197 (as high as 20%) in every thousand girls, and between 66-88 (as high as 9%) in every thousand boys report having endured abuse (2). Read more
