Bystander Effect

What is the Bystander Effect? An interesting story, a true story! A hard look at how people decide to get involved with trauma or difficulties. Kitty died because people did not want to get involved. 38 people saw the murder! 38 Witnesses but everyone deferred to someone else to call the emergency services. 

Transcendental Meditation

 

Transcendental Meditation was introduced to the West by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1960s. It is a simple method that anyone can use anywhere, but best done in a quiet place alone and without interruption. The technique is a mantra which has no meaning and has no philosophy or religious structure or belief. 

Children with sleep problems

Teachers report children falling asleep during classes. Many of these children are highly stressed and keep going on adrenaline. Over stimulation is often the cause. The way to deal with this is a strict routine. At the end of the day, children need at least an hour to prepare for sleep. Lights need to be switched down, all TV and Internet off. Parents need to have words and behaviour that is consistent every night, a strict time schedule set for regularity of bedtimes. Bedrooms should be very dark. Very soft instrumental music, the same every night can be used. 12 hours is ok for most children.

Via Hedera - Bramble in August

When summertime is here so is the power of the lush blackberry bush (also called the bramble). Mother of waysides, father of highways and byways, caretaker of lands and feeder of people – we hail the high summer call to its sweet and thorny guidance, its constancy, its inherent sweetness. Blackberries, fruitful and swift to grow, long to linger, hard to kill! This is the magic they bring us come summer. Bramble is not a fickle plant spirit. They are enduring, grasping, and persistent. In your circles, spells, rites, and magic work, turn to this hearty and intrusive spiritual force to grow a thicket of protection around yourself and your work, to sweeten a guarded love, and to inspire endurance. Create a vessel for these spirits to dwell in. A cotton, linen, wool, hemp, or silk bag, a woven basket, etc., will suffice and are a biodegradable option. Do you remember that the devil of the crossroads, graves and hilltops are said to cast this herb, spitting upon it, tramping it, and honouring it from Michaelmas to Hallowtide, so take the sunny days of August to bless your home with this vigilant spirit that is favourable to Venus the sphere of romance and kindness. Let the scent of its baked petals and the prick of its wisdom guard you and guide your soul. 

A Bramble Spirit Vessel

Improving Your Sleep

One of the greatest complaints physicians hear is that patients have poor quality sleep. This either comes in the form of insomnia, or feeling tired after a full night's rest. 

The Mandala

Mandalas are very ancient meditative designs and are international in their distribution. Their design is often circular, ornate and flowing within, to the centre and then to the outside of the boundary. Labyrinths are similar designs. The object is for meditation and to create harmony and balance within the mind. Anyone can produce their own mandalas and colour them as desired. They are especially good for children and for recuperation from mental and physical illness. 

Carl Jung - spirituality

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who trained under Eugene Bleuler and was associated and trained with Sigmund Freud. Jung’s school of Analytic Psychology continues to be popular. He is accused of collaborating with the Nazis in WWII where he acted as a psychiatrist and promoted Hitler and Mein Kampf. Despite having a reputation for endorsing astrology, after an initial belief, he rejected it. 

Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology.  He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart throught the world.  There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul. -- Carl Jung (from "New Paths in Psychology", in Collected Papers on Analytic Psychology, London, 1916). 

Notes - Socrates - Karen Armstrong

Precis notes from The Case for God by Karen Armstrong

"An unexamined life is not worth living!" Socrates. 

Socrates did not commit any of his teachings to writing, so we rely on the writings of his pupil Plato (circa 427 - 347). Socrates preferred oral teaching when matters could be discussed and points challenged. He did not like fixed or stridently held opinions. 

Socrates sought not only to inform but also to create in the minds of his students a profound psychological change. Wisdom was an insight not an amassing information. He said he had no interest in teaching people anything because he knew nothing. His students did not come to learn anything but to have an experience and a radical change of mind. His dialogues were a spiritual exercise. Socrates was primarily interested in goodness which, like Confucius, he refused to define. 

Instead of analysing and talking about virtue, he wanted to live a virtuous life! When asked for a definition of justice, he replied “instead of speaking it make it an act of life”. This was only possible because Socrates was authentic and his mission was to awaken genuine self knowledge. Those who came to talk to him were involved in a dialectic of rigourous discipline designed to expose false beliefs,  consequently a conversation with Socrates could be disturbing. He forced students to submit to answering questions concerning their present manner of life and the life they have lived, and he would only discuss subjects that they felt comfortable with. 

Arthur Janov

Who was Arthur Janov? 

Arthur Janov was a Californian psychotherapist who developed the theory of Primal Therapy. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were clients. Primal Therapy involved screaming, crying and expressing early abuse. 

Self Actualisation Qualities

 According to Maslow, self-actualizing people share the following qualities:

• Truth: honest, reality, beauty, pure, clean and unadulterated completeness
• Goodness: rightness, desirability, uprightness, benevolence, honesty
• Beauty: rightness, form, aliveness, simplicity, richness, wholeness, perfection, completion,
• Wholeness: unity, integration, tendency to oneness, interconnectedness, simplicity, organization, structure, order, not dissociated, synergy
• Dichotomy: transcendence, acceptance, resolution, integration, polarities, opposites, contradictions
• Aliveness: process, not-deadness, spontaneity, self-regulation, full-functioning
• Uniqueness: idiosyncrasy, individuality, non comparability, novelty
• Perfection: nothing superfluous, nothing lacking, everything in its right place, just-rightness, suitability, justice
• Necessity: inevitability: it must be just that way, not changed in any slightest way
• Completion: ending, justice, fulfillment
• Justice: fairness, suitability, disinterestedness, non partiality,
• Order: lawfulness, rightness, perfectly arranged
• Simplicity: abstract, essential skeletal, bluntness
• Richness: differentiation, complexity, intricacy, totality
• Effortlessness: ease; lack of strain, striving, or difficulty
• Playfulness: fun, joy, amusement
• Self-sufficiency: autonomy, independence, self-determining.

Sociopath!

What is a Sociopath? 
We have all heard this word, but many of us do not know its meaning! 
A sociopath is someone who has the hallmarks of extreme selfishness, lack of empathy and lack of conscience. Sometimes the word is used interchangeably with the word 'psychopath' and the words 'antisocial personality disorder' is also often used by professionals. They appear in all walks of life; doctors, lawyers, accountants, politicians, etc., etc., and are manipulative, impulsive, unkind and mean, they have a sense of superiority and entitlement, are judgemental and often bully others into submission. They are also narcissistic and think or speak about themselves in exagerated terms. It is thought that 3 - % of the population have this defect in their character. There is no suitable medication to treat it. Anger management can help.

Stalking - A Malicious Hate Crime

Stalking is a crime of aggression that leaves no visible scars. Yet the effects of stalking are severely debilitating on emotional, mental and spiritual levels as they leave the victim feeling increasingly powerless and traumatised. The crime is one of veiled threats, harassment, intimidation, control, intrusion and emotional blackmail and it often occurs over a prolonged period, resulting in accumulated confusion, isolation, alienation, and eventually crisis for the victim. 

Stalking may involve information gathering, importuning, parading a new victim, malicious remarks or behaviour, and upsetting remarks or language. The Readers Digest Universal Dictionary defines stalking as “to move threateningly, to pursue or track stealthily, to transverse threateningly or menacingly.” These definitions provide an example of the type of predatory prowling that perpetrators have towards their prey. 

How To Breathe!

Why do singing lessons need to discuss the way to breathe properly? Isn't breathing just part of being alive and something that we do all the time without even thinking about it. While we all breathe, not everyone breathes properly, and one of the secrets to singing success is being able to breathe properly.

Proper breathing is one of the key aspects to learning to sing. Breathing correctly affects the quality of your voice tone and also helps you sing long notes when you need to. One of the most common mistakes made by people when they first sign up for singing lessons is that they think that breathing for singing is the same as breathing for, say, aerobics or regular activity.

Mind Mapping Demonstration

Designed by the late Tony Buzan in the 1970s, this is a very useful way of collating psychological material. This video demonstrates how to create a 'mind map'. I use them all the time as a writer to organise the information for my feature articles. The most simple form is a spidergram, which has been available since my childhood days.

Toxic Masculinity

Toxic masculinity is a set of self serving, judgemental behaviours. These destructive values and attitudes are dominant and aggressive and are fuelled by hatred of those whom the toxic male considers to be inferior. The major target is women who are seen as submissive, subservient, passive, and weak - these qualities are seen as traits to exploit. Women are objectified, used and discredited.

Toxic men like to surround themselves with caring, empathic people, but they only care about themselves, not anyone else. They believe there are winners and losers in life, and they must win through any means possible. Of course, some people are good at maths, others singing, some have excellent memories, some tell jokes well, however, to the toxic male, to consider a variety of skills is too complex, so they focus on one thing that is easily identified - money! Who has the most money is of intense interest, and they will get it by hook or by crook to prove they are best at everything, because money encompasses everything in their estimation. 

Save our Bees!

Despite the US and the UK resisting, bee campaigners are celebrating the European Union prohibition on the use of systemic pesticides which have been demonstrated to be toxic to bees. A total of 15 of the 27 European member states voted for a 2 year ban on neonicotinoids and 300,000 people in the UK signed a petition to bring in a ban. Most bumblebee species are declining and 6 species have suffered an 80% reduction in numbers in recent years. In the past 100 years, 20 British bee species have become extinct and 35 British bees are currently at risk of extinction. This is due to several factors, not just the chemicals which reduce their immune system capabilities, but loss of habitat plays a large role as does the removal of honey from hives and replacing it with sugar water which provides none of the valuable nutrients for bees throughout the winter, and does not provide the antibacterial that is needed for them to fight diseases. With 98% of wild flower meadows vanishing since 1950, we need to plant flowers that will help bees to thrive. They play a crucial role in plant pollination.  

Save our seas!

Fishing is taking place throughout the Earth's oceans at such a pace that our oceans are dying and many fish species are now extinct and many are extremely unhealthy with all kinds of dangerous pollutants both for them and for us when we consume them. Ocean acidification is caused by pollution, global warming is causing the seas to heat up, causing the death of many fish and mammals who are suffering. When fish stock are low, more farm land is required for farm animals which create more carbon emissions. Governments and institutions need to realise that the future of people - our children and grandchildren's - lives are at stake. Only buy fish from sustainable sources! 

Ecological Footprint

The U.K. uses 7.7 billion plastic bottles each year! 117 bottles on average per person per year. 

Our ecological footprint is a measure of our communal consumption levels in terms of the Earth's surface measured in hectares which are needed to support us. This figure includes crops, such as palm oil and soya, and land for farm animals for food, harvesting timber, catching fish, etc., and is caused through burning fossil fuels, deforestation, etc.
Bangladesh is 0.5 hectares: UK is 5.4 hectares; and USA is 9.5 hectares!
Rich countries are responsible for the greatest consumption and the greatest production of carbon dioxide but poorer countries are being affected most seriously.

LomiLomi Foot Massage Demonstration

Loneliness Book Extract: Ben Lazare Mijuskovic

Extract from 'Loneliness: In Harm’s Way*'  I attended this symposium and these are the verbatim notes of a talk at Brunel University, London on 30th October 2015:  The speaker wished to convey four things: (a) that all human beings are innately and universally lonely; (b) why this is so; (c) the consequences of loneliness; and (d) what can be done about it - its remedies!

         "The twin principles I propose to defend are that all we feel, think, say, and do occurs between two emotional and cognitive poles in human consciousness, between the solipsistic insularity of loneliness and the intentional desire to transcend it by attaining intimate attachments. The two terminals of consciousness constitute the dynamics of repulsion and attraction, which continually guide us through our passions, thoughts, and actions. After the biological drives for air, water, nourishment, sleep—and before sex---are met, the most insistent psychological need and motivational drive in human beings is to secure an intimate relation to other self-conscious creatures, whether animal, human, or divine. In effect, I wish to replace Freud’s principle of libidinal energy with the anxiety of isolation.

To 'Awaken' What does it mean?

Several times, the word 'awake' is mentioned in the Bible. It is also mentioned in The Koran and it is frequently mentioned in New Age philosophy; but what does it mean to awaken? We all know what it means to sleep (we spend a third of our life in this unconscious state) but why use metaphorical language when it confuses such an important matter? We can surely be more articulate and explain ourselves properly, using appropriate words in the English language.

What does it mean to be 'enlightened'? There is so much talk about it - but very little meaningful explanation available! It is concerning that the instantaneous moments of mind expansion so often described by spiritual teachers would be described as 'psychotic' episodes by doctors. Can one become enlightened through navel gazing? I think not! If anything an 'enlightened' state is one of awareness, where we are keenly aware of what is happening, where we take action for needs of others in a non self serving way.

Highly Sensitive People

  

Are you highly sensitive or hyper aware? With apologies for the advert at the beginning which you can skip if you like, the video is enlightening and worth watching. 

HSPs are often highly empathic and open to the needs of others, they have a keen sense of justice and are often highly intelligent. 

They might be very sensitive to loud noises, intensity of light, changes in temperature, and the moods of other people. They might be a person who needs to chose their friends, their work and their environment carefully so as not to becomed overwhelmed.

 They often like their own company, to be in the company of one other person and may find crowds are threatening to their sense of control. They are often shy, retiring or reclusive. They feel stress intensely, and might also find their energies quickly depleted. 

Laurel Woodward - June

The month of June and the summer solstice! The sun is rising at its northernmost declination. In the northern hemisphere this is the longest day of the year. Also known as midsummer. The solstice is an ancient solar celebration and fire festival celebrating light and the power of the Sun. In places like Iceland, the night is so short that the sky does not become fully dark on Midsummer night. In Finland, bonfires were lit to ensure good luck and drive out evil spirits. In Latvia Midsummer Eve is known as herb evening, for just as the Sun is at its zenith, the energy of the many plants are very potent and are gathered at this time. 

Gather handfuls of fresh chamomile, lavender, and lemon balm on this day or night to make your own feel-good herbal blend. Stuff the herbs into a pouch and carry it in your left pocket to guard against negative words, or brew the herbs into an infusion and drink it to elevate thought and bolster a good mood. 

Last words of Jacob de Molay

 I think it’s only right that, at so solemn moment, when my life has so little time torun, I should reveal the deception which has been practised and speak up for the truth. 

Before heaven and earth, and with all of you here, as my witnesses, I admit that I am guilty of the grossest iniquity - but this iniquity is that I have lied by admitting the disgusting charges laid against the order. I declare, and I must declare, that the order is innocent. Its purity and saintliness is beyond question. I have indeed, confessed that the order is guilty, but I have done so only to save myself from terrible tortures by saying whatever my enemies wished me to say. Other knights who have retracted their confessions have been led to the stake. Yet the thought of dying is not so awful that I shall confess to offences which have never been committed. Life is offered to me, but at the price of infamy. That’s a price that life is not worth having. I do not grieve that I must die if life can be bought only by piling one lie upon another.