Has the Greek wedding turned into a Funeral?

Remember the last time there was a financial crisis? Well there have been many in the last few decades. The Asian crisis in 1998, There was 2007 then 2008. There was Lehman Brothers, Northern rock and the queues around the block to withdraw money from a feared collapse of one bank and then many others. Some thought we were hours from doom. If you were to visit Greece a few years ago you would have felt money was all around you, now it seems to have seeped away.

Often when we are in a crisis, we forget that we have managed to survive at other points in our lives. At present there is the fear of the contagion of the Greek crisis in Europe and the world. The….What if? What if? Questions seem to go on in the newspapers and the financial markets. What if questions are anxiety filled. So much is driven by emotions, even the very markets which are meant to be about logic seems to be foaming at the mouth with fear at the moment. At these times it is best to stay still, stay tight and not make any rash decisions.

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Filed under Anxiety, Catastrophising, Money, Politics

Getting Close without getting lost in a committed relationship?

I have invited Mara Fisher of http://www.BridgeofLife.com from the US to guest blog on my blog for your pleasure: below is a blog piece…Mara is a very experienced and wise therapist..

Getting close without getting lost while in a committed relationship?

Ever wonder how to know if you are being intrusive? It is much easier to get when someone else is being intrusive. Sometimes that can be confusing as well.

When we are in a committed relationship our confusion with boundaries becomes most evident. It can be quite confusing. Is it okay if I tell my partner what I think? Will I be invading their space? How come I get upset when my partner tells me what he/she thinks? If I want something done a certain way am I invading my partners boundaries. These questions can go on and on. Understanding our own boundaries is quite complex and worth the effort.

I have noticed that all working relationships have some degree of haze surrounding the boundaries of the persons within it. Relationships are alive and the people in them often overlap in order to achieve comfortable levels of intimacy. Relationships take on a life of their own separate and apart from the I or the you.

The question many of us ask, is how can I tell if I am getting lost within the life of my relationship? And yet some of us do keep our sense of self and do not get lost in the forest of our relationship. While others forget to leave breadcrumbs when they go into a relationship and so they get lost. Continue reading

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Filed under Relationship, Uncategorized

Giving up chocolate for Lent; Easter, Baumeister and Willpower

Easter EggsEaster is coming and the Easter eggs are in the stores, lines and lines of them. It is a very British tradition. Around 80 million eggs are eaten in the UK each year. There are an estimated 63 million people in the UK and that means some people are eating more than one egg. Even the Queen on her jubilee year may be tucking into a few of them.

Lent lasts for fourty days. It is based on the time Jesus spent fourty days and fourty nights in the desert. 40 days and 40 nights. The number fourty seems to have significance in many areas. The flood which Noah built his ark for was for fourty days, Jonah gave the people of Nivenah fourty days to repent. Then this idea of fasting or avoiding the thing you love to eat developed. It is odd; it is about giving up something and not taking up something. Someone I know is giving up takeaways for Lent, another chocolate and crisps. Chocolate seems a common one.

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Filed under Addiction Patterns, Psychology, Self-regulation, Thinking Patterns

“The biggest devil is me. I’m either my best friend or my worst enemy,” Whitney had said. We all need to make friends with our inner-devil.

I was so sad to hear of Whitney Houston’s demise. I would love to see people who are talented but are also addicted to drugs, living a long and productive life, but that rarely is the case.  It would be nice to beat the odds.  What was noticeable was Whitney having said that she is “the biggest devil is me, I am either my best friend or my own worst enemy”.  There are rumours that her former marriage had rumblings of domestic abuse. Her past seems to suggest the pain she was trying to run away from. If you have pain,  it is so important to try and face your own pain.  Many people who take drugs and/or who are involving their time in unhealthy behaviours are doing just that, masking their pain, allaying their ‘enemy’. Continue reading

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Filed under Abuse, Addiction, Addiction Patterns, Celebrities, Depression

Fred Goodwin and his fall from Grace; what shall we do with our own falls?

I was just reading about Fred Goodwin’s Knighthood. It is not withdrawn or taken away. A knighthood is stripped. It sounds like slowly ripping off masking tape, bit by bit from raw skin.  His career was one of an exceptional rise and fall. He was like Moses to his staff and had, I still think still has such power. Some people really seem to be born with it. The point of this post really is to write about the falls from grace we can have. We all have them. Every one of us has had a fall or some sort.

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Filed under Celebrities, Patterns, Politics

Depression and the 21st Century

We live in the 21st century. There is more food than we need in the western world. Obesity is on the rise. There are still butter and sugar mountains in the European Union. Food is not the issue it once was. Many more live in homes than are homeless. More are working than are not working. Women do not have to necessarily stay within the strict rules of social behaviour. They can be married, live with someone or live alone. Women are more highly educated than they were at the start of the last century. I remember 30 years ago being told, it was not healthy nor necessary to educate girls.Children now go to school for longer than they used to in the early 20th century. More go to university now than ever did. Yet, depression rates seem to have risen. It makes you wonder doesn’t it? Are we more aware now of depression and what depression is? Or have our expectations grown even more?

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Filed under Depression, Depression Patterns

NEW YEARS reSOLUTIONS

Funny thing resolutions; they often get forgotten and then seem to be recycled and used again and again, year after year.  It is almost as if resolutions are eco-friendly and have a “Do not dispose of “ sticker on them.  What I am going to suggest is that we have not a resolution but to have a “solution”.  It is about time to have some changes set in place in our lives.  After all, the human race is meant to be an intelligent people.  IQ scores have risen over the last two decades.  People are meant to be smarter but a new years resolution does not seem to have much staying power.  Here therefore is what I propose for your New Years Solutions.

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Filed under News, Positive, Thinking Patterns, Uncategorized