Tag Archives: values

WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?

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Have you done it all? The presents, the cards, the food – all the paraphernalia of Christmas… It is easy to forget what it’s really supposed to be about: ‘ peace on earth, goodwill to all mankind.’ Whether you are a Christian or not, these are surely good sentiments to bring to the fore at this time. And if we want them to be a truth in our world, we have to look at how we can create peace and goodwill in our own world.

It starts with ourselves: do you feel goodwill towards yourself? Be kind to yourself during this time, allow yourself to relax and indulge in pleasurable activities. When you are treating yourself with kindness and respect, you are far more likely to treat others in the same way.

And add a little more kindness, just to celebrate the season. Begin with those you know and love: stop and play with the children for a little while; phone a friend and tell them how much they mean to you; invite a neighbour for coffee.

Then spread your goodwill a little further, to strangers you come in contact with: give a homeless person some money when you’re in town; thank someone properly for the way they serve you or deliver something to you; give some attention to someone you are usually too busy to speak to.

And are you feeling peaceful? Let your mind relax and give yourself a break from all the busyness. Just for a day or two, don’t worry about what else you should have done. Write it down on a list somewhere and leave it for when you are ready to pick up the reins again.

And as you create a little peace for yourself, being quiet and at ease, imagine your moment of peace as rays of warmth and calm, gently spreading out over those around you, at home, in the supermarket, in the street. Just stop for a moment and imagine you are enveloping others in that peace blanket.

And maybe in a quiet moment in the morning, or before you go to sleep, you can transmit your peace towards all those who are suffering disruption, war, misery, anger, and imagine them receiving just a moment of calm, of hope.

Let’s remember what this season is really about this Christmas, and celebrate our ability as human beings to find joy, love, peace and kindness in the midst of chaos.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

BREAKING THE CIRCLE

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I can’t condone killing – it is surely always wrong. So, like everyone else, I find senseless bombing or shooting of people abhorrent. And at the same time, I can’t condone the reaction of ‘let’s bomb those devils’ either, for the same reason – it’s killing.

World War 1 went on for four years, World War 2 for six years. How long now have we been fighting ‘the war on terror’ to no avail? Surely we can learn something from history, and realise that we need to try something different. And surely with our global communications and information now, there are some different and useful ideas out there.

I was watching a couple of episodes of Dr Who last night, about the Zygons – I know, what is this tangent? In the story, Dr Who gives an impassioned speech that stops the killing that is going on and makes everyone think again. In it he points out that even if you win the war, there will be another revolution, and others will rebel against the ruling group, so war is just perpetuated. He suggests that we just need to sit down and talk, that people making real contact with each other will find a different way. It’s only a story, yet isn’t it time that we at least used our brilliant minds to see if it is possible?

Instead we are fed battle talk, fear stories, and posturing on all sides. Our governments act as if we are innocent victims, yet threaten the enemy with weapons and might. They also kill, and we sit by and say little when we have no interests in the areas where innocent people are being killed – think Palestine, Africa, Syria etc.

There have been examples of taking a different tack: in South Africa, in Northern Ireland, with Iran… it may not work perfectly, but for sure it is better than constant war and war-mongering.

I am glad that there have been a few examples on the news of Parisian reactions that were not outrage or fear but courage and warmth: the father telling his child that the candles and flowers for those who died were more powerful than weapons; the man who said that they had taken his wife and child, so he wasn’t going to give them his hate as well.

We can refuse to be intimidated, we can refuse to think that everyone who is Muslim is a threat to us, we can look for ways of building peacefulness and we can show love and warmth and consideration to others.

It is time to break the circle of fear and threat, and we do that by behaving differently. I know, I’m an old hippy, all about peace and love – but I am not stupid – if fighting and frightening worked, we would all be living in peace now – we’ve done it for long enough!

THE POWER OF ONE

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I watched a fascinating documentary this week called ‘I Am’ by Tom Shadyac. It’s about what’s wrong with the world and what can be done about it, featuring some of the great thinkers of our time, and I love its conclusions. On of them is about the power of one – one step, one action, one change in behaviour. ‘Small everyday acts accumulate and create change, personally, socially and culturally.’

It reminded me that change of any sort doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It happens because gradually more and more people think differently, act differently, until there is a critical mass. So each time we do those small everyday acts, we contribute to changing the world for the better.

It is easy to feel powerless in the face of poverty, negativity, ecological destruction, never-ending war. And we are educated into believing that only governments and large corporations can really change things – and they show few signs of wanting to improve our world for all of us. Yet history shows that governments do effect change when there is enough noise from ordinary people to force them not to ignore it, and that those who are considered to be leaders of change for the better – Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King – only emerge when there is already a groundswell of people who believe in and actively want those changes, and who are actively taking some of those small steps to make a difference.

So what can we do?

The principle of the power of one can be applied at every level. So begin by identifying a change for the better you want in your own life. Maybe you want to be fitter, spend more time with those you love, connect with nature more, have more fun…

Now take one small step in that direction, today: go for a walk round the block; phone a friend you haven’t seen for a while and arrange to meet up; go to the local park and look at, maybe even touch, the flowers and trees; play a silly game with your children, your partner (try our top 5 films, books, TV programmes – it’s fascinating!)

Now look at your community, whether that is geographical, the people you work with, or the circle of friends you have. What would be an improvement in that area?

Maybe say hello to neighbours and get to know them a bit more; or talk about something different when you go the pub with mates; or talk face-to-face with work colleagues instead of emailing them; or just take a bag and pick up some of the litter you see on the street.

And more generally? How do we make a positive difference at a global level? As Friends of the Earth have always said, ‘Think global, act local.’

Add your name to petitions for changes. There are lots of them on-line: avaaz; friends of the earth; sum of us; amnesty international; and many more. Give something to the homeless person on the street, or at least say hello. Contribute to a water pump for a village through Oxfam. Stop using pesticides in your garden and encourage friends to do the same.

And above all else, treat everyone you encounter as another valuable human being. Be kind, thoughtful, pleasant, no matter how they are being

So this week, begin to use the power of one more. Let’s make a difference in this world of ours, and change it for the better. One small everyday act is all it takes. Just imagine the difference if we simply all applied this principle!

THE RIPPLE EFFECT

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Who have you affected today? The answer is: anyone you have had any sort of contact with. That’s a bit scary isn’t it? We tend to think we only affect others if we have consciously decided to do so, yet we know it’s not true.

Think about it the other way round: has anyone made you smile or laugh or feel warm today? Or have they annoyed you, bored you, upset you? It only takes a word or two, a line in an email from someone, to set our mood for a while. Even people there is no direct contact with can change our mood: the person who’s being delightful with someone else in your vicinity – and the one who is being unpleasant with someone – not to mention the news, or the dj on the radio!

It’s called the ripple effect because how we are with others ripples out, not just to them, but also to the next people they encounter, and from those people to their interactions, etc. There is research that proves this effect, and we all actually experience it, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Many years ago, I realised this, when Jo, my son, and I were on a retreat with our teacher and friend Emmanuel. It was in the south of France in the summer, and we were given an afternoon off, but with homework to do: we had to do something that helped others. Jo and I spent moments considering this, and decided not to! We went to the seaside instead, having lovely coffee, a great ice cream, and playing silly buggers on the beach. We had great fun, and went back feeling great.

Then there was report-back from the homework and people started talking about the ways they’d been kind to others. I decided to do true confession, and said that we had just gone and had fun. The group were a bit shocked that we didn’t just ignore the homework, we also admitted to it! Emmanuel’s response, however, was quite different: he suggested that we had probably had a positive impact on more people than anyone else, because our joy and fun had affected passers-by, people on the bus, and anyone who encountered or saw us. I was astonished and delighted that helping others could be so easy and pleasurable!

So what effect are you having in the world? Just stop and think about it, before you snap at someone or, sometimes worse, ignore them. You can make a positive difference in the world every single day, by just saying a kind word, being happy, deciding not to react negatively.

And you can choose not to allow someone else’s bad mood to ripple to you and through you. Why should they be able to use you as a vehicle to send negative ripples into the world? Just recognise your reaction to their mood, and consciously walk away from it, and choose your own mood.

If only for today, choose to have a positive ripple effect, and see what happens…

A SENSE OF WONDER

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Over the last few weeks, I have watched my beech hedge turn from looking dead and bare to being filled with new life, firstly as buds, and then green leaves that almost seem to glow. I don’t have to go anywhere to observe this miracle of nature – I just have to be still for long enough to notice. This is one of thousands of examples of the wonder of our natural world, and spring is a great time to be reminded of that, as so many things come back to life.

I like the word wonder, and the adjective, wonderful. They mean amazement, astonishment, and imply that we are reacting to the magic of our world. We may be able to explain some of these things scientifically, but that doesn’t mean we have to lose our sense of wonder.

As children, we are amazed by lots of things that adults seem to ignore or take for granted. We notice all those things in the natural world: how clouds change shape; the different songs birds sing; the colours and patterns on butterflies. And we also see magic in man-made things: how light goes on and off at the flick of a switch; how we can talk to someone many miles away as if they were in the room; how sheep’s wool can become a colourful sweater. All this wonder gives us a sense of possibility and creativity, as well as delighting us, making us smile or laugh.

This awareness of the magic and wonder of our world is also something that people often come back to when they know they are dying, or have narrowly escaped death. I remember Dennis Potter, the playwright, movingly describing his delight in blossom on the trees, the feel of sunshine on his skin.

Yet in between our childhood and the end of our lives, we seem to be too busy or ‘practical’ to allow ourselves just to wonder. We may occasionally feel that sense of delight – most people I know can’t help but go ‘Ooooh!’ when they see fireworks – but most of the time we don’t take advantage of the many things we have to wonder at, we don’t take the moment it takes to feel that amazement at the world we have.

It seems to me that the sense of wonder is part of the essence of the human spirit, intended to give us delight, reminders of possibility, and help us make this world a better place. So let’s re-find it now, and enjoy it for most of our lives, not just at the beginning and end.

Take a few minutes to be amazed and delighted every day.

  • Look at the sky outside your window – how big is that! And how beautiful!
  • Notice how perfectly and uniquely nature has shaped that tree
  • See the exquisite perfection of that butterfly and its movement
  • Be astonished by how that combination of metals and mechanics you sit in can transport you from a to b so easily
  • Notice how often the flick of a switch gives you power that has come from an unseen source

Let’s not take for granted all the wonders in our world, let’s appreciate and delight in them, and recognise their value. We would be lost and bereft without them, so let’s remember how much they really mean to us.

WHAT IS ‘NORMAL?’

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Recently someone described me as abnormal – and I decided that it was a compliment! It got me to thinking about what normal is. The word means: ‘according to the customs and habits of the time or place.’ It is the accepted way of being and behaving within a specific context. We also call this being conformist.

Now, at some level, we all need to conform or fit in. There are laws to hold us in check: if I don’t pay for my utilities, or injure someone deliberately, I will be called to account.

There are also some universal ‘laws’: being kind and courteous, doing no harm, which most of us live by, because they are fundamental human values, and we are basically decent human beings.

However, most of the rules we live by without even thinking about it are not in these two categories. They are just the way we do things in our culture. To take a simple example, most people take a shower every day. Yet when I was young, we just had a bath every week – there weren’t showers in most homes. And it was not that long ago that even baths were a special occasion, indulged in once a year!

Again, having a mobile phone is now considered the norm – in fact, it has to be a smartphone, because then you can respond to emails as well, and be available 24/7 by one means or another. Yet I remember when lots of people didn’t even have a landline, and the phone-box at the end of the street was used if there were an emergency. Otherwise you wrote letters.

These examples just illustrate how ‘normal’ changes over time and is an ephemeral phenomenon. So it is worth questioning whether you feel that the norm suits you, or whether you want to create a new ‘normal’ that fits you better and makes your life feel better.

Now, anyone who knows me will know that conforming is not my strong suit. In fact, I am actively working on being who I really am, rather than who I am expected to be. And I believe that we are lucky in this day and age, because we have so many more choices of ways of being and behaving in the world. We can call on different examples from all over the world and from history, because that information is readily available, and do a ‘pick’n’mix’ selection of what suits our personality and preferences.

So let’s begin to make conscious choices, to establish our own personal norms, instead of being and behaving normally. Lets’ question the norm before we just conform to it.

How do we do this?

  1. Once a day notice something that you’re doing that’s habitual: answering the phone as soon as it rings; starting on dinner as soon as you get in from work; agreeing to do something you don’t really want to do – you’ll find lots of examples. Now check this particular behaviour out: are you doing it because you feel better if you do, or are you doing it because ‘people do’ or ‘they’ expect you to.
  2. If it makes you feel better, then it’s fine to carry on.
  3. If it doesn’t make you feel better, then ask yourself: ‘How would I prefer to behave?’ ‘What would feel like a better fit for me?’
  4. Next time that habitual behaviour comes up, experiment with a different approach: let the phone go to voicemail, and ring them back if you really want to speak with them now; sit for five minutes and have a cuppa before you do dinner; ask for time to consider before you say yes.
  5. If the experiment works for you, start to do it more often, until it becomes you new normal. If it doesn’t, try something different until you find what does.

Be warned, this can create two different forms of pressure to return to old habits – after all, they are pretty ingrained in us.

  1. Others expect you to behave as you always have behaved, and will ask you why you didn’t or in some way make you feel guilty for changing.
  2. Even more insidious is our own mind, which tells us we are causing a problem or upsetting others even when there’s no evidence for it.

The good news is that if you stick to your guns, it becomes easier, and others come to accept your new normal.

So come on, make life work a little better for you by changing those ‘rules’ you’ve been living by that don’t really fit for you. Join me in being abnormal and proud of it!

BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF PART TWO

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Last time I wrote about being true to your own fundamental values. And then it gets more complex! There is another side to being true to yourself, which is about allowing yourself to be how you are.

It was a quote from my beloved teacher, Ram Dass, that prompted me first into thinking about this: ‘I am always true to myself and this means that I am often inconsistent’ It was in the midst of listening to a talk about allowing ourselves to be human, and not always trying to be perfect, and it made me realise how often I would push myself to behave and react as you are supposed to if you are a good person, a good worker, a good parent – you get the theme…

We are a rich tapestry of often contradictory characteristics, and the particular blend of me that I am aware of today may not be the same as yesterday or tomorrow. So we can be generally sociable and wish we could just be on our own for a while, or usually focussed on our tasks but just not in the mood today, or sometimes love being a parent and other times just want to talk with other grown-ups.

We receive a lot of conditioning that makes us feel obliged to be the way we think others expect us to be, and it is hard to break the habit of trying to be how we should be rather than how we truly are.

Furthermore, we are constantly evolving. As we add to our experience, we tend to develop certain of our characteristics more. For example, we may become more compassionate towards others as we become more aware of the difficulties that some people have to contend with, or we may enjoy our own company more as we become more confident in ourselves and no longer need to be always part of a group. So, over time, being true to ourselves may mean dropping some old habits that others expect of us, because they no longer fit so well with how we have become.

I know that for me getting to grips with these two ways of being true to yourself has been difficult. Others have a picture of who you are and what you’re like, and can easily push you back into that old story, because it is also built into our culture: once you reach adulthood, it is as if you are now set in stone as a personality, even though we all know it is not true. What’s more, we do the pushing to ourselves: I often try to make myself be focussed when I am just not in the mood because I am ‘someone who can be like that’ – and then have to remind myself that I’m also a meanderer through life!

If we are going to be true to ourselves we have to admit to our inconsistencies and accept them as part of the richness of who we are. Every time we don’t, we are betraying ourselves again, and paying the cost of our hearts and minds contradicting each other.

How do we get better at being true to ourselves and our mixture of characteristics?

  1. Begin by giving yourself a moment to reflect. Notice your own mood. Do you want to be sociable or quiet today? Do you want to be active or still? Do you feel confused or clear, serious or silly? What do you really feel like doing today? And notice how you feel physically and how your mind reacts if you follow your preferences – and if you don’t.
  2. Learn to delight in your contradictions. Be grateful you are daft as well as wise – otherwise you would be most unsympathetic to others who had such opposite characteristics! It is part of what makes us human, and most of us prefer others who are not perfect.
  3. Even if you can’t fully cater for your differing moods, because of constraints at work for example, do give them a bit of recognition. Wherever possible, gear your tasks to your mood: if you feel like being sociable, talk to someone rather than emailing them. If you’re not in the mood to focus on a task, do something simple first and give yourself a chance to gently adapt your mood. And at the very least, take 15 minutes to indulge in what you really feel like doing. Our moods do shift if we allow them to without forcing it.
  4. Pay some attention to how you have evolved over the years. Have you grown out of enjoying a noisy pub night? Then suggest an alternative to your friends – it’s quite likely some of them will feel the same.
  5. Finally, dare to admit your inconsistencies to others. You may be surprised by how accepting they are when you are honest about it.

 

I believe this form of being true to yourself is a lifelong job! As we begin to explore it, we discover in how many ways we have learnt to betray ourselves and not follow our own hearts, our own story. At the same time, it is delightful to realise that being ourselves in all its diversity is the best gift we can give to others – it allows them to be real as well. Those who love you love you for who you are – so go ahead, be silly if you feel like it!!

 

BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF – PART ONE

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I am going to explore this theme in two different ways. This time, I am going to look at the way we so often don’t live to our own values, and what we can do about it.

‘This above all, to thine own self be true; thou can’st not then be false to any man.’ Shakespeare said it in Laertes’ speech in Hamlet, and the words resonate with us. But what does it really mean in practice?

I used to have this quote on my living room wall many years ago, and the reason I took it down was not because it had become embedded in my psyche – it was because every time I looked at it, I was reminded of how often I failed to live up to it. I betrayed myself over and over again, in big and small ways: pretending to like something because someone else thought it was good; keeping quiet when my boss was being unnecessarily unpleasant with another member of staff; driving myself to put effort into something that I couldn’t really see any purpose to. I had learnt how to behave how I was expected to, and to keep my discomfort to myself.

Nonetheless, the quote did its work – it kept nagging away at the back of my mind. It is after all talking about our fundamental human values: being fair; behaving ethically; treating others with respect. We all know in our hearts when these values are not being met, yet we often condone with our silence, or with our acceptance that the behaviour is ‘allowed’ by our culture. This is how we come to accept bullying at work, tax avoidance, discrimination of all sorts, and corruption in politics. We may not agree but we see it as inevitable.

Given how complex being true to yourself can be, it can seem like just a grand aspiration. We have to stand up and be counted if we genuinely hold to our fundamental values. Yet every time we don’t, we are betraying ourselves and there is a personal cost to this.

When our hearts and minds contradict each other, it has a detrimental physical effect on us. It is a pervasive form of stress that goes largely unrecognised, and it wears us down, making us world-weary and cynical. And of course, it makes us less pleasant to be around for others, because we all sense when someone is ‘living a lie’, when they are pretending, when they are incongruent.

SO HOW DO WE BECOME BETTER AT BEING TRUE TO OUR OWN VALUES?

The first step to take is the fascinating exploration of what being true to yourself means.

What are your fundamental values?

In an ideal world how would we be treated by others, how would we treat others, how would we treat animals, the natural world? You may not have ready-made answers to these questions, but by asking them of yourself, you begin to realise what really matters to you.

Once we have begun to recognise what being true to our values really means to us, we can begin to gently apply it more often in our lives. It is important for most of us to approach this gently: learn from my mistakes! As a young teacher, I argued with colleagues and the head over the categorising of our pupils as ‘thick’ and got myself forced out of the school system – that didn’t help to change things for those kids! I was clumsy in my initial attempts to stand up for my values.

Treat others as you wish to be treated.

Begin by being the one who is kind and fair and respectful. Use your everyday encounters – at work, in the supermarket, in the car park – as opportunities to practise being with others how you wish they were with you. This makes you feel good, and trains the ‘muscle’, so that it is easier to respond to poor treatment from others without betraying your fundamental values by sinking to their level, or taking it personally when they attempt to make you feel bad in some way.

When I argued with my colleagues, I ended up criticising them for their attitudes and even accused them of being poor teachers. I was as unpleasant to them as they were being to some of the pupils. I showed no understanding of their frustrations and didn’t listen to any of their points of view. They weren’t bad people, and nowadays I would make it clear that I was not going to play judge and jury with them.

Work out what you could say or do, without losing your job or a friendship, when someone behaves in a way that offends your values.

We have wisdom with hindsight, use it! Reflect on situations that you have experienced, and identify how you could have reacted differently, and in a way that made a positive difference.

I would now use a different tack with my colleagues in the school. I would still say that I didn’t agree with them, but it would be clear that it was their opinion I was objecting to, not them as people. I would also think through my argument more: how might it benefit them to treat the kids more positively, rather than just saying it was wrong. What argument might work from their point of view?

Make a conscious choice

Sometimes we may feel that there is nothing we can do or say. We then have to make a conscious choice: do I stay and condone by my silence? Do I walk away? Do I avoid similar situations in the future? It’s OK to not always get it right – we are all learning how to be true to ourselves and our values. Just notice, if you choose to stay with it, the effect it has on your body, mind and heart. That is how we remind ourselves that it is not good for us to betray ourselves.

 

It can be scary to practise living to your values – we don’t live in a value-driven world. I just think it is scarier to continually put myself under a sneaky stress that wears down my spirit, and has no good effects. And you may be surprised by how much support you get when you do dare to express your values – it just needs someone to start, and others join in. most of us have very similar values – we need to start admitting it.