Note:  I originally wrote this in May, 2010, and hadn't posted it on Copperstrings.  Since I wrote another post on a similar subject, I went back and decided to add this one to my Journals. Today I learned that Hollis Burns, a guy I knew in high school who was sixty-three years old died yesterday.  He had apparently played golf Sunday afternoon and gone home, and was found sitting in a chair holding a newspaper.  This guy looked healthy the last time I saw him.  He was only a year older than I.  It made me think about how little control we actually have over our lives.  We think we control things, we think we make things happen.  But do we really? How much of what we experience is beyond our influence?  Did Hollis have a fear of d...

I've been thinking about dying lately.  People in Japan are facing death as I write this.  One woman talked about her father being employed at a nuclear power plant, and he was staying to try to minimize the damage because he already knew he wasn't going to get out of there alive. Ten years ago, people in the towers in New York faced death with no recourse, and from all accounts, they bravely did everything they could. And I have clients come to me so depressed, so distraught with how things are going in their lives that they wish they could just die. I've felt that way myself.  A couple of years ago, facing my worst financial disaster, part of me just wanted to die so I wouldn't have to feel so much shame and pain. And we watch ...

I've been reading "the Book of Secrets" by Deepak Chopra. In a chapter entitled, "Evil is not your enemy" which is a chapter about the 'shadow' side of us all, he talks about something he calls the gap between body and mind. This is the place of interpretation or what I like to think of as story-telling. It happens after something happens to us and before we react to it. It is essentially the space of time when you decide what something means. For example, you are sitting alone in your home at night and you hear a noise in your backyard. Your mind may decide it is an intruder planning to break into your home or it may choose to believe that it is just the wind blowing your lawn furniture around. Though the stimulus is the same, dependi...

In my last journal, "Who Cares What People Think?", I discussed how caring too much about what other people think of us can be destructive. Today it occurs to me that the same can be said of investing too much in what we think of ourselves. CS member, Edna Poole, wrote in my soul space: "What I think is not important, all that brought me for forty years is lots and lots of pain regret and sorrow. If I speak only what I think my voice is second hand. Truth is not a thinking process. Truth is before thoughts appeared along with time and calenders and not enough and too late on and on and on..." This is so profound because so many of us will search our minds (past memories, thoughts, future images, etc.) to figure out who we really are....

I had never been burgled before. When I returned home earlier I walked in to find the back door of the house had been kicked through and was broken in half. It came as a surprise. What does one do in such situations? Glass and wood debris lay in the house and out. The mangled lower half of the door was hanging by the hinge. I have had many more pleasant experiences in my time. A few hours later I had a door in place and a great deal of gratitude for what has just happened. Although the assailants had broken the back door they had largely left the house alone. The contents of one of the draws had been emptied onto the bed and a small amount of money had been taken. Amongst the contents on the bed were a few envelopes of gratitude notes th...

To be trapped by anything can make one feel as if they are imprisoned in a small space with no air to breathe. Unlike the Jeanie trapped in a bottle for centuries until someone happened to find this bottle and magically rub it to life. You are not that lucky! Unfortunately there is no Prince Charming out there that will find you and magically rub you until you are free. You are the only one that can escape the prison of low self-esteem! Your self-esteem is up to you and only you. You can waste days upon days…years upon years waiting and hoping for that someone to come and make your self-esteem higher. It will never happen. You will have lived life lonely, angry, hidden and trapped. My advice to you is to begin with who you see ev...

Occasionally I have one or both of my nephews around to stay with me at the weekend, they are currently aged 5 and 7. This usually gives me the opportunity to regress a bit and have a lot of fun.I get to play games and eat unhealthily for a day or two whilst they get the freedom to do pretty much what they like. As they are not ready to own the merits of eating healthily I have adopted their mentality whilst they are staying. Meanwhile, I get to pick their brains for the pearls of wisdom that they occasionally present. I have a habit of asking them questions that I have yet to find an answer to and indeed probably never will. "What is the key to the universe?" and "What is the secret to life?" are things I have pondered for many...

(As sent out to Kimberley Jones' LIGHT CIRCLE network  -  Visit www.lightcoaching.co.uk to join) Dear Light friends, I am happy to report that my recent trip to Cuba was ultimately an enjoyable one. I arrived in Cuba at the tail end of Hurricane Ike which was quite an experience. Once the dramatic storms left the coast of Cuba I was able to track the path of the hurricane on CNN as it tore its way through the global epicentre of the petrochemical industry in Southern Texas. As major American financial institutions collapsed by the hour it was very clear that change was upon us all.     So here we are in the middle of what the media is terming 'financial crisis' & the 'credit crunch'. It is undeniable that some ...