October 31, 2012 · 9:38 pm

Our Personal Hurricanes

Lance Armstrong donations

How life changes. Over the last week we have had a hurricane. A hurricane is not just a simple storm but one that blows over a low pressure area, and the circling winds seem to pick up more and more energy. This energy, the disturbance in the atmosphere, the instability such as a front, a depression, or a wind shear. All these factors, the energy, moisture, upper level winds and a trigger going upwards will blow into a tropical storm that can grow into a hurricane. So many factors come into making a storm into a hurricane.

A seemingly innocuous sounding hurricane named ‘Sandy’ wrecked havoc and destruction in the East Coast of the United States. I have a friend named Sandy and she is a friendliest and most personable person I know; so unlike her namesake hurricane. So much can change in such a short time. So many have died and been injured and destroyed in its wake. It really is awful and it will take ages for some to recover from it. There was a smaller one in the UK in the 80s and even today I meet people who still remember and suffered loss from it.

Another hurricane, a personal hurricane I was thinking of was what had happened recently to Lance Armstrong, a professional road-racing cyclist. He had also started and made a huge contribution to charity after he himself also suffered and recovered from cancer. Just recently he had been stripped of his 7 titles and wins of the Tour de France for being a “serial cheat who led the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping programme the sport has ever seen”. So dramatic has his rise and fall been. It must be so painful at many levels for him and those who love him to be so close to what went on. Continue reading →

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September 30, 2012 · 11:20 pm

Returns and Choice

I went to one of the well known furniture superstores the other week. There was a section called “Returns”. It seems you can return things if they have been unopened and unused if they are returned within 90 days with your till receipt. Some people use returns in stores after using the item. Some businesses such as those for photographic shoots depend upon this returns policy as it would cost too much to buy the item outright for only one shoot.

I was wondering if there was something you could return what would it be?

Would it be your partner/spouse? Your pet? Your children? Your life up to now/a certain age?

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August 31, 2012 · 9:29 am

Endings in The Olympics and in Life….

Hands up those who remember the ending in the Olympics?

Hands up those who remember the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics? Umm, there seems to be more hands up for the Opening ceremony.

This is often the preferred way in life too. Tickets for the Opening ceremony for both the Olympics and the Paralympics cost more than the Closing Ceremony. More effort was also put into the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics than the Closing Ceremony. The closing ceremony was a series of last minute invites to some pop stars. Some bands had been only asked to do it a few weeks before, but the opening ceremony had months of preparation involved in it.

The Paralympics are on now. The same things will play out too. I often find that clients can have wonderful beginnings but then things seem to taper out for some and for others they do very well. Most though do find endings harder to do and often rather try and avoid it. Some have paid me for the session but not turned up, others seem to cancel and cancel and avoid it. Continue reading →

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August 2, 2012 · 8:05 am

Badminton in the Olympics and on Losing on Purpose

I thought the badminton teams being disqualified for intentionally losing their matches was interesting. The players involved were China’s world champions Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang, Indonesia’s Greysia Polii and Meiliana Jauhari and two South Korean pairs – Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na, and Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung.

If you watch the matches on video you will see it is as though they have never played badminton before. They keep serving into the net and their rallies (if any) are short.

http://www.cbssports.com/olympics/blog/eye-on-olympics/19701953/video-badminton-players-throw-match-disqualified-from-olympics

The crowd are booing and telling them to go off. Anyone who has gone to the Olympics in London knows tickets are expensive, it takes a lot of effort to obtain a ticket, then to travel and make your way there. I know I would have been very irritated and upset to watch a match I could have myself played far better at.

But why lose a match on purpose? Here there was a benefit in losing to the other team. All had qualified but the winner would then play China which was the stronger team. This was part of a strategy in the round-robins which had been newly set up and the teams were trying not to play China and were working to be relegated to a match with a less superior opponent in the semi-final. Continue reading →

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July 31, 2012 · 10:48 pm

The Olympics and High Inactivity Levels in UK

The Olympics are on now in the UK but research by the Federal University of Pelotax in Brazil found that we are one of the most indolent nations on earth. The University found that society seems to be moving to less activity but greater food consumption. British people have lower levels of activity than the US, France and the Republic of Ireland. Activity is classed as meeting the minimum of 30 minutes of moderate activity (a brisk walk) at least 5 days a week, then 20 minutes of vigorous activity 3 times a week. These two individually or a combination of the two every week is counted as an effective activity level. A whopping rate of 63% in the UK are inactive, 41% in USA are inactive, 71% in Malta are inactive (Malta has the honour of having the most inactive people in the world) and Greece has a much lower inactive rate of 16%.  The UK is very near to winning and being one of the most inactive peoples on earth. I almost felt like not writing this blog….. Continue reading →

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June 30, 2012 · 9:53 pm

Cruise and Holmes impending divorce news and How to Have a Happy Marriage

I was so sad to hear today of Tom Cruise’s and Katie Holmes’s impending divorce. Someone I know was working at a recent film premier of his in London and said how he spent hours talking and taking pictures with his fans. She said he seemed to really care for people and was very professional. Their divorce though made me think a little.

I am always sad when people divorce because I believe in doing as much as possible by planning ahead – even before the marriage. If you have been divorced before or never married then plan well ahead and read on….if you have been divorced before…learn to forgive yourself. If you are married to someone you feel is not right for you…also forgive yourself. Just being married does not mean all is well. Learning lessons is always difficult when we do not forgive ourselves. It is always easy to make errors. Continue reading →

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May 17, 2012 · 12:25 pm

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.

Continue reading →

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April 16, 2012 · 11:23 pm

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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March 31, 2012 · 6:22 am

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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February 12, 2012 · 9:55 am

“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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