From clutter to clarity

I am currently reading a book about presence... being present in the here and now and transcending our physical being into our spiritual being through retreats and other such malarky! What a waste of paper, I feel guilty about the tree which created this book! Unfortunately (or fortunately) most of us cannot afford the time and or cash to head out on a month long retreat to find our inner selves and to be honest the experience may fill our souls with wonder but it is short lived when we return to our here and now and our general lives. It is more important to find 'presence' in our existing lives, our realities rather than head off into the ether to discover it. If you suffer from living in the future, constantly striving, making no time for yourself in the now, please consider the following time effective but real ways to wake up to the now. Sit for 2 mins and focus on your breathing or your heart rate- nothing else- and if thoughts come into your head tell them yo...

Being curious is one of the most effective ways for us to engage with other human beings as well as the world. Curiosity opens up a world of opportunities, it allows us to explore something physical or intellectual in new and novel ways, and discover new, interesting and innovative ways of doing things. Curiosity can engage all or any one of our senses. Curiosity allows us to listen to another person without judging them and to consider another point of view. It allows us to use our ears twice as much as our mouths and therefore to learn more about the world we are in than we already know about it. Without curiosity our world would be a very dull place. And yet, we rarely adopt a stance of curiosity preferring to share with the world our existing knowledge, our existing views, use our existing familiar perimeter. This may seem scary but not quite so scary as not letting allowing curiosity, especially for children.  Letting them find and discover on their own, in the d...

After some feedback re my 'real conversation' blog I have decided to issue a further communication challenge to anyone reading this. It again relies on a rapidly declining skill and challenges us to put ourselves out there a little more than an email or text message. It doesn't allow us to hide behind abbreviations or symbols, it is an 'old fashioned' letter. And the purpose of the letter, this time, is to tell someone something about what they mean to you or have done for you. Letters were once the only means of distant communication and were frequently kept and reread as a source of comfort and joy, so whether you chose to pen a thank you note, a love letter, or an outline of what someone means to you, know that you are taking a huge step further than sending a text message or email. Letters have a physicality to them, a handwritten letter the added dimension that time, thought and effort has gone into it, no cutting and pasting available and if the lette...