Being Human Part 2: Saying Goodbye To ‘People-Pleasing’

    This is a follow up to Loving Pinocchio  I am currently aged 37, and from the age of 6, I began to ‘people please’. This all began because of my experience with the headmistress (she told me that I had embarrassed the whole school because I did not put my flowers in the correct place in a school production). People pleasing has been a way of life for…

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The Long Road Of Grief – And Letting Go – Autumn Moments

As some of you may know, I lost my dad to heart disease 11 years ago. Those of you who have lost close loved ones will know that losing someone close is very different from losing a more distant relative, or someone whom we spend less time with. The grief is very different and can have a more long standing impact on a person’s emotional well-being. When my dad passed…

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Does Getting What You ‘Really’ Want Have Consequences?

Last night I had the strangest dream, but it had a very deep message for me and something to further ponder on with regards to getting what we want. Many teachings on-line speak of the famous ‘Law Of Attraction’ and ‘Creating Your Reality’. They say ‘if you want it, you can have it’. Now maybe this is true, maybe it is not, but my dream showed me something that really…

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The Law Of Attraction & The Chicken & The Egg

  I am a questioner by nature now but I wasn’t always. I used to be wildly fascinated by people’s spiritual experiences and anything outside the box. I took ‘a truth’, I didn’t question it much. I now question everything and I feel this is a very good thing; it’s very grounding. Now, ‘The Law of Attraction’ is a huge thing right now. Books are filled with information on it,…

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Syria – Fear and The ‘Inner’ War

  Do not read on if you are not ready to be challenged. I rarely watch the news or read the news, but sometimes I stumble upon something happening and it engages me for a while. My house-mate had been mentioning Syria a few times and I had not paid much attention until last night. Without going into details, as the internet is full of it, I questioned him about…

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Getting Over Our Fears Of Things In Nature

*This is a follow up post to ‘ Shadow Totems’ HERE It is clear to say that a few years ago I used to be an insectiphobe. Creepy crawlies creeped me out. Bee and wasps terrified me, cockroaches still do and alien looking creatures gave me chills. Thankfully most of that has changed as I began to realise the things we fear have a lot to teach us. Many fears…

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The Positive Thinking Culture Is Creating Neurotic Spiritual Seekers

Over the past year I have begun to notice a growing trend in spiritual circles, so much so I feel the need to talk about the rather large elephant in the room that many spiritual teachers are failing to address fully. The intense emphasis on positive thinking is creating a state of neurosis in many people on the spiritual path. While some people are brought up to view life experiences…

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Attached To Feeling Good

Many ‘spiritual’ teachings encourage positive thinking, yet by doing so they are resisting the entirety of our human experience. The teachings can often be so generalised that they do not take into account an individual’s personal history, conditioning and much more. What we need is balance, and to not be attached to feeling joyful or blissed-up and happy. In Buddhism it is said non-attachment to everything is the key to…

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Holding Fear With A Compassionate Heart – Anxiety

When fear arises, most of us will do anything to not feel it. We use all kinds of mechanisms to resist fear; overeating, drinking, watching TV, playing computer games, listening to music, over-socialising, over-working and generally keeping busy. Yet the underlying fear still remains.  It’s like trying to hold a balloon under water. All these attempts to diffuse the feelings simply do not work. I was like this for most…

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Button Pushers As Reflections

This is a guest post by Michael Doherty from The Michael Files The people who annoy you the most are the most valuable gifts. It sometimes seems that my role in life is to p*ss people off, by challenging them, by asking awkward questions, by making them face unpalatable truths about themselves.   They’ll often get angry, shout at me, swear, call me all the names under the sun, and walk away. All those reactions…

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